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+ border-style: dotted; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + padding: 1%; + font-style: normal; + font-size: 70%; + text-align: justify; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Book About the Theater, by Brander Matthews + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Book About the Theater + +Author: Brander Matthews + +Release Date: July 20, 2011 [EBook #36790] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK ABOUT THE THEATER *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="bbox"> +<p class="center"><i>Books by Brander Matthews</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Biographies</span></p> + +<p>Shakspere as a Playwright<br /> +Molière, His Life and His Works</p> + +<hr class="hrsm"/> + +<p><span class="smcap">Essays and Criticisms</span></p> + +<p>French Dramatists of the 19th Century<br /> +Pen and Ink, Essays on subjects of more or less importance<br /> +Aspects of Fiction, and other Essays<br /> +The Historical Novel, and other Essays<br /> +Parts of Speech, Essays on English<br /> +The Development of the Drama<br /> +Inquiries and Opinions<br /> +The American of the Future, and other Essays<br /> +Gateways to Literature, and other Essays<br /> +On Acting<br /> +A Book About the Theater</p> +</div> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<h2>A BOOK<br /> +ABOUT THE THEATER</h2> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_fp" id="image_fp"></a> +<img src="images/i_006.png" alt="" title="" /><br /> +<span class="caption">LE BALLET DE LA REINE<br /> +<br /> +A FRENCH COURT BALLET IN<br /> +THE EARLY SEVENTEENTH<br /> +CENTURY</span> +</div> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h1">A BOOK<br /> +ABOUT THE THEATER</p> + +<p class="h2">BY<br /> +BRANDER MATTHEWS</p> + +<p class="center">PROFESSOR OF DRAMATIC LITERATURE IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY; MEMBER<br /> +OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_007.png" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="cnobmargin">NEW YORK</p> +<p class="cnomargins">CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</p> +<p class="cnotmargin">1916</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="cnobmargin"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1916, by</span></p> +<p class="cnomargins">CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</p> +<hr class="hrsm"/> +<p class="cnotmargin">Published October, 1916</p> + +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_008.png" alt="" title=""/> +</div> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<h2>TO AUGUSTUS THOMAS</h2> + +<p class="indent"><span class="smcap">My Dear Augustus:</span></p> + +<p class="indent">Let me begin by confessing my regret that I cannot +overhear your first remark when you receive this sheaf +of essays, many of which are devoted to the subordinate +subdivisions of the art of the stage. As it is, +I can only imagine your surprise at discovering that +this book, which contains papers dealing with certain +aspects of the theater rarely considered to be worthy +of criticism, is signed by the occupant of the earliest +chair to be established in any American university +specifically for the study of dramatic literature. I +fancy I can hear the expression of your wonder that +a sexagenarian professor should turn aside from his +austere analysis of the genius of Sophocles and of +Shakspere, of Molière and of Ibsen, to discuss the +minor arts of the dancer and the acrobat, to chatter +about the conjurer and the negro minstrel, to consider +the principles of pantomime and the development of +scene-painting. But I am emboldened to hope that +your surprise will be only momentary, and that you +will be moved to acknowledge that perhaps there may +be some advantage to be derived from these deviations +into the by-paths of stage history.</p> + +<p class="indent">You are rather multifarious yourself; "like Cerberus, +you are three gentlemen at once"; you have been +a reporter, you have published a novel, you have +painted pictures, you have delivered addresses—and +you write plays, too. I think that you, at least, will +readily understand how a student of the stage may +like to stray now and again from the main road and to +ramble away from the lofty temple of dramatic art to +loiter for a little while in one or another of its lesser +chapels. And you, again, will appreciate my conviction +that these loiterings and these strollings may be +as profitable as that casual browsing about in a library +which is likely to enrich our memories with not a little +interesting information that we might never have +captured had we adhered to a rigorous and rigid course +of study. You will see what I mean when I declare +my belief that I have come back from these wanderings +with an increased understanding of the theory of +the theater, and with an enlarged acquaintance with +its manifold manifestations.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps I ought to explain, furthermore, that these +excursions into the purlieus of the playhouse began +long, long ago. I gave a Punch and Judy show before +I was sixteen; I performed experiments in magic, I +blacked up as Tambo, I whitened myself as Clown, I +played the low-comedy part in a farce, and I attempted +the flying trapeze before I was twenty; and I was +not encouraged by the result of these early experiences +to repeat any of the experiments after I came of age. +I think it was as a spinner of hats and as the underman +of a "brothers' act" that I came nearest to success; +at least I infer this from the fact—may I mention +it without seeming to boast?—that with my partners +in this brothers' act, I was asked if I would care to +accept an engagement with a circus for the summer. +As to the merits of the other efforts I need say nothing +now; the rest is silence. When the cynic declared +that the critics were those who had failed in literature +and art, he overstated his case, as is the custom of +cynics. But it is an indisputable advantage for any +critic to have adventured himself in the practise of the +art to the discussion of which he is to devote himself; +he may have failed, or at least he may not have succeeded +as he could wish; but he ought to have gained +a firmer grasp on the principles of the art than he would +have had if he had never risked himself in the vain +effort.</p> + +<p class="indent">With this brief word of personal explanation I step +down from the platform of the preface to let these +various essays speak for themselves. If they have +any message of any value, I feel assured in advance +that your friendly ear will be the first to interpret it. +And I remain,</p> + +<p class="cnobmargin">Ever yours,</p> +<p class="rnotmargin">Brander Matthews</p> + +<p class="lnobmargin">Columbia University,</p> +<p class="lnotmargin">in the City of New York.</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">CONTENTS</p> + +<p class="right">PAGE</p> + +<ul class="TOCRSC"> +<li>The Show Business <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></span></li> + +<li>The Limitations of the Stage <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">17</a></span></li> + +<li>A Moral from a Toy Theater <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">37</a></span></li> + +<li>Why Five Acts? <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">55</a></span></li> + +<li>Dramatic Collaboration <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">77</a></span></li> + +<li>The Dramatization of Novels and the<br /> +Novelization of Plays <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">93</a></span></li> + +<li>Women Dramatists <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">111</a></span></li> + +<li>The Evolution of Scene-Painting <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">127</a></span></li> + +<li>The Book of the Opera <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">153</a></span></li> + +<li>The Poetry of the Dance <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">169</a></span></li> + +<li>The Principles of Pantomime <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">185</a></span></li> + +<li>The Ideal of the Acrobat <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">201</a></span></li> + +<li>The Decline and Fall of Negro-Minstrelsy <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">217</a></span></li> + +<li>The Utility of the Variety-Show <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">235</a></span></li> + +<li>The Method of Modern Magic <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">251</a></span></li> + +<li>The Lamentable Tragedy of Punch and Judy <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">271</a></span></li> + +<li>The Puppet-Play, Past and Present <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">287</a></span></li> + +<li>Shadow-Pantomime, with All the Modern<br /> +Improvements <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">303</a></span></li> + +<li>The Problem of Dramatic Criticism <span class="ralign"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">319</a></span></li> +</ul> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<p class="hangindent">Le ballet de la reine <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_fp"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></span></p> + +<p class="right">FACING PAGE</p> + +<p class="hangindent">Upper half of Plate No. 1, the 'Miller and His Men' <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_057">40</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">A group of the principal characters from<br /> Pollock's juvenile drama, the 'Miller and His Men' <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_061">42</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Explosion of the mill. A back drop in the 'Miller and His Men' <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_067">46</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Plate No. 7, the 'Miller and His Men' <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_071">48</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Lower half of Plate No. 5, the 'Miller and His Men' <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_077">52</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The Roman Theater at Orange <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_161">134</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The multiple set of the French medieval stage <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_161">134</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The set of the Italian comedy of masks <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_161">134</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">An outdoor entertainment in the gardens of<br /> +the Pitti Palace in Florence in the early sixteenth century <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_165">136</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The set for the opera of 'Persée' (as<br /> +performed at the Opéra in Paris in the seventeenth century) <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_171">140</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">A prison (designed by Bibiena in Italy in the eighteenth century) <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_171">140</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The screen scene of the 'School for Scandal'<br /> at Drury Lane in 1778 <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_177">144</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">A landscape set <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_181">146</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">A set for the opera of 'Robert le Diable' <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_181">146</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The set of the last act of the 'Garden of Allah' <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_185">148</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">A set for 'Medea' <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_185">148</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The set of 'Œdipe-Roi' (at the Théâtre Français) <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_189">150</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The set of the 'Return of Peter Grimm' <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_189">150</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Scenes from Punch and Judy <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_315">274</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Scenes from Punch and Judy (continued) <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_319">276</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Roman puppets. Greek and Roman puppets. Puppet of Java. <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_335">290</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">A Sicilian marionette show <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_339">292</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">A Belgian puppet. A Chinese puppet theater.<br /> Puppet figure representing the younger Coquelin <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_343">294</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Puppets in Burma <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_347">296</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The puppet play of Master Peter (Italian) <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_347">296</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">A Neapolitan Punchinella <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_353">300</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">The broken bridge. Plan showing the construction of a<br /> + shadow-picture theater. A Hungarian dancer (a shadow picture) <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_363">308</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Shadow Pictures. The return from the Bois de<br /> + Boulogne. The ballet. A regiment of French soldiers <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_367">310</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Shadow Picture. The Sphinx I: Pharaoh passing in triumph <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_371">312</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Shadow Picture. The Sphinx II: Moses leading his people out of Egypt <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_375">314</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Shadow Picture. The Sphinx III: Roman warriors in Egypt <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_379">316</a></span></p> + +<p class="hangindent">Shadow Picture. The Sphinx IV: The British troops to-day <span class="ralign"><a href="#image_383">318</a></span></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">I<br />THE SHOW BUSINESS<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE SHOW BUSINESS<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> an interesting moment in Disraeli's picturesque +career in British politics he indulged in one of his strikingly +spectacular effects, in accord with his characteristic +method of boldly startling the somewhat sluggish +imagination of his insular countrymen; and in the next +week's issue of <i>Punch</i> there was a cartoon by Tenniel +reflecting the general opinion in regard to his theatrical +audacity. He was represented as Artemus Ward, +frankly confessing that "I have no principles; I'm in +the show business."</p> + +<p class="indent">The cartoon was good-humored enough, as <i>Punch's</i> +cartoons usually are; but it was not exactly complimentary. +It was intended to voice the vague distrust +felt by the British people toward a leader who did not +scrupulously avoid every possible opportunity to be +dramatic. And yet every statesman who was himself +possessed of constructive imagination, and who was +therefore anxious to stir the imaginations of those he +was leading, has laid himself open to the same charge. +Burke, for one, was accused of being frankly theatrical; +and Napoleon, the child of that French Revolution +which Burke combated with undying vigor, never hesitated +to employ kindred devices. When Napoleon +took the Imperial Crown from the hands of the Pope +to place it on his own head, and when Burke cast the +daggers on the floor of the House of Commons, they +were both proving that they were in the show business. +So was Julius Cæsar when he thrice thrust aside +the kingly crown; and so was Frederick on more than +one occasion. Even Luther did not shrink from the +spectacular if that could serve his purpose, as when he +nailed his theses to the door of the church.</p> + +<p class="indent">If the statesmen have now and again acted as tho +they were in the show business, we need not be surprised +to discover that the dramatists have done it +even more often, in accord with their more intimate +relation to the theater. No one would deny that +Sardou and Boucicault were showmen, with a perfect +mastery of every trick of the showman's trade. But +this is almost equally true of the supreme leaders +of dramatic art, Sophocles, Shakspere, and Molière. +The great Greek, the great Englishman, and the great +Frenchman, however much they might differ in their +aims and in their accomplishments, were alike in the +avidity with which they availed themselves of every +spectacular device possible to their respective theaters. +The opening passage of 'Œdipus the King,' when the +chorus appeals to the sovran to remove the curse that +hangs over the city, is as potent on the eye as on the +ear. The witches and the ghost in 'Macbeth,' the +single combats and the bloody battles that embellish +many of Shakspere's plays are utilizations of the spectacular +possibilities existing in that Elizabethan playhouse, +which has seemed to some historians of the +drama to be necessarily bare of all appeal to the senses. +And in his 'Amphitryon' Molière has a succession of +purely mechanical effects (a god riding upon an eagle, +for example, and descending from the sky) which are +anticipations of the more elaborate and complicated +transformation scenes of the 'Black Crook' and the +'White Fawn.'</p> + +<p class="indent">At the end of the nineteenth century the two masters +of the stage were Ibsen and Wagner, and both of +them were in the show business—Wagner more openly +and more frequently than Ibsen. Yet the stern Scandinavian +did not disdain to employ an avalanche in +'When We Dead Awaken,' and to introduce a highly +pictorial shawl dance for the heroine of his 'Doll's +House.' As for Wagner, he was incessant in his search +for the spectacular, insisting that the music-drama +was the "art-work of the future," since the librettist-composer +could call to his aid all the other arts, and +could make these arts contribute to the total effect +of the opera. He conformed his practise to his principles, +and as a result there is scarcely any one of his +music-dramas which is not enriched by a most elaborate +scenic accompaniment. The forging of the sword, the +ride of the Valkyries, the swimming of the singing +Rhinemaidens, are only a few of the novel and startling +effects which he introduced into his operas; and +in his last work, 'Parsival,' the purely spectacular element +is at least as ample and as varied as any that +can be found in a Parisian fairy-play or in a London +Christmas pantomime. And what is the 'Blue Bird' +of M. Maeterlinck, the philosopher-poet, who is also +a playwright, but a fairy-play on the model of those +long popular in Paris, the 'Pied de Mouton,' and the +'Biche au Bois'? It has a meaning and a purpose +lacking in its emptier predecessors; but its method is +the same as that of the uninspired manufacturers of +these spectacular pieces.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">It is not without significance that our newspapers, +which have a keen understanding of the public taste, +are in the habit of commenting upon entertainments +of the most diverse nature under the general heading +of "Amusements." It matters not whether this entertainment +is proffered by Barnum and Bailey, or by +Weber and Fields, by Sophocles or by Ibsen, by Shakspere +or by Molière, by Wagner or by Gilbert and Sullivan, +it is grouped with the rest of the amusements. +And this is not so illogical as it may seem, since the +primary purpose of all the arts is to entertain, even if +every art has also to achieve its own secondary aim. +Some of these entertainments make their appeal to +the intellect, some to the emotions, and some only to +the nerves, to our relish for sheer excitement and for +brute sensation; but each of them in its own way +seeks, first of all, to entertain. They are, every one +of them, to be included in the show business.</p> + +<p class="indent">This is a point of view which is rarely taken by those +who are accustomed to consider the drama only in its +literary aspects, and who like to think of the dramatic +poet as a remote and secluded artist, scornful of all adventitious +assistance, seeking to express his own vision +of the universe, and intent chiefly, if not solely, on +portraying the human soul. And yet this point of +view needs to be taken by every one who wishes to +understand the drama as an art, for the drama is inextricably +bound up with the show business, and to +separate the two is simply impossible. The theater is +almost infinitely various, and the different kinds of +entertainment possible in it cannot be sharply distinguished, +since they shade into each other by almost +imperceptible gradations. Only now and again can we +seize a specimen that completely conforms to any one +of the several types into which we theoretically classify +the multiple manifestations of the drama.</p> + +<p class="indent">Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Barnum and Bailey's +Greatest Show on Earth might seem, at first sight, to +stand absolutely outside the theater. But it is impossible +not to perceive the close kinship between the +program of the Barnum and Bailey show and the program +of the New York Hippodrome, since they have +the circus in common. At the Hippodrome, however, +we have at least a rudimentary play with actual dialog +and with abundant songs and dances executed by +a charging squadron of chorus-girls; and in this aspect +its spectacle is curiously similar to the nondescript +medley which is popularly designated as a "summer +song-show." Now, the summer song-show is first +cousin to the so-called American "comic opera"—so +different from the French <i>opéra comique</i>. Even if it has +now fallen upon evil days, this American comic opera +is a younger sister of the sparkling ballad-opera of Gilbert +and Sullivan, and of the exhilarating <i>opéra bouffe</i> +of Offenbach, with its libretto by Meilhac and Halévy.</p> + +<p class="indent">We cannot fail to perceive that the librettos of Gilbert +and of Meilhac and Halévy are admirable in themselves, +that they would please even without the music +of Sullivan and Offenbach, and that they are truly +comedies of a kind. That is to say, the books of +'Patience' and 'Pinafore' do not differ widely in +method or in purpose from Gilbert's non-musical play +'Engaged'; and the books of the 'Vie Parisienne' and +the 'Diva' do not differ widely from Meilhac and +Halévy's non-musical play, 'Tricoche et Cacolet.' +'Engaged' and 'Tricoche et Cacolet' are farces or light +comedies, and we find that it is not easy to draw a +strict line of demarcation between light comedies of +this sort and comedies of a more elevated type. Gilbert +was also the author of 'Sweethearts,' and of +'Charity,' and Meilhac and Halévy were also the authors +of 'Froufrou.' Still more difficult would it be +to separate sharply plays like 'Charity' and 'Froufrou' +from the social dramas of Pinero and Ibsen, the +'Benefit of the Doubt,' for instance, and the 'Doll's +House.' Sometimes these social dramas stiffen into +actual tragedy, the 'Second Mrs. Tanqueray,' for example, +and 'Ghosts.' And more than one critic has +dwelt upon the structural likeness of the somber and +austere 'Ghosts' of Ibsen to the elevated and noble +'Œdipus the King' of Sophocles, even if the Greek +play is full of a serener poetry and charged with a +deeper message.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is a far cry from Buffalo Bill's Wild West to the +'Œdipus' of Sophocles; but they are only opposite +ends of a long chain which binds together the heterogeneous +medley of so-called "amusements." In the +eyes of every observer with insight into actual conditions, +the show business bears an obvious resemblance +to the United States, in that it is a vast territory +divided into contiguous States, often difficult to bound +with precision; and, like the United States, the show +business is, in the words of Webster, "one and indivisible, +now and forever." There is indisputable profit +for every student of the art of the stage in a frank +recognition of the fact that dramatic literature is inextricably +associated with the show business, and the +wider and deeper his acquaintance with the ramifications +of the show business, the better fitted he is to +understand certain characteristics of the masterpieces +of dramatic literature. Any consideration of dramatic +literature, apart from the actual conditions of performance, +apart from the special theater for which +any given play was composed, and to the conditions +of which it had, perforce, to conform, is bound to be +one-sided, not to say sterile. The masterpieces of dramatic +literature were all of them written to be performed +by actors, in a theater, and before an audience. +And these masterpieces of dramatic literature which +we now analyze with reverence, were all of them immediately +successful when represented by the performers +for whom they were written, and in the playhouses +to the conditions of which they had been +adjusted.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is painfully difficult for the purely literary critic +to recognize the inexorable fact that there are no truly +great plays which failed to please the contemporary +spectators for whose delight they were devised. Many +of the plays which win success from time to time, +indeed, most of them, achieve only a fleeting vogue; +they lack the element of permanence; they have only +theatrical effectiveness; and they are devoid of abiding +dramatic value. But the truly great dramas established +themselves first on the stage; and afterward +they also revealed the solid qualities which we demand +in the study. They withstood, first of all, the ordeal +by fire before the footlights of the theater, and they +were able thereafter also to resist the touchstone of +time in the library.</p> + +<p class="indent">When an academic investigator into the arid annals +of dogmatic disquisition about the drama was rash +enough to assert that, "from the standpoint of the +history of culture, the theater is only one, and a very +insignificant one, of all the influences that have gone +to make up dramatic literature," Mr. William Archer +promptly pointed out that this was "just about as +reasonable as to declare that the sea is only one, and a +very insignificant one, among the influences that have +gone to the making of ships." It is true, Mr. Archer +admitted, that there are "model ships and ships built +for training purposes on dry land; but they all more +or less closely imitate sea-going vessels, and if they +did not, we should not call them ships at all.... The +ship-builder, in planning his craft, must know what +depths of water—be it river, lake, or ocean—she will +have to ply in, what conditions of wind and weather +she may reckon upon encountering, and what speed +will be demanded of her if she is to fulfil the purpose +for which she is destined.... The theater—the actual +building, with its dimensions, structure, and scenic appliances—is +the dramatist's sea. And the audience +provides the weather."</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">Since the drama is irrevocably related to the theater, +all the varied ramifications of the show business have +their interest and their significance for students of the +stage. It is not too much to say that there is no form +of entertainment, however humble and however remote +from literature, which may not supply a useful +hint or two, now and again, to the historian of the +drama. For example, few things would seem farther +apart than the lamentable tragedy of Punch and Judy +and the soul-stirring plays of the Athenian dramatic +poets; and yet there is more than one point of contact +between these two performances. An alert observer +of a Punch-and-Judy show in the streets of +London can get help from it for the elucidation of a +problem or two which may have puzzled him in his +effort to understand the peculiarities of Attic tragedy. +Mr. Punch's wooden head, for example, has the same +unchanging expression which characterized the towering +masks worn by the Athenian performers. In like +manner a nondescript hodgepodge of funny episodes, +interspersed with songs and dances, such as Weber +and Fields used to present in New York, may be utilized +to shed light on the lyrical-burlesques of Aristophanes +as these were performed in Athens more than two +thousand years ago.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps even a third instance of this possibility of +explaining the glorious past by the humble present +may not be out of place. A few years ago Edward +Harrigan put together a variety-show sketch, called +the 'Mulligan Guards,' and its success encouraged him +to develop it into a little comic drama called the +'Mulligan Guards' Picnic,' which was the earliest of +a succession of farcical studies of tenement-house life +in New York, culminating at last in a three-act comedy, +entitled 'Squatter Sovereignty.' In this series of +humorous pieces Harrigan set before us a wide variety +of types of character, Irishmen of all sorts, Germans +and Italians, negroes and Chinamen, as these are +commingled in the melting-pot of the cosmopolitan +metropolis. These humorous pieces were the result of +a spontaneous evolution, and their author was wholly +innocent of any acquaintance with the Latin drama. +And yet, as it happened, Harrigan was doing for the +tenement-house population of New York very much +what Plautus had done for the tenement-house population +of Rome. A familiarity with the plays of the Latin +playwright could not but increase our appreciation of +the amusing pieces of the Irish-American sketch-writer; +and a familiarity with the comic dramas of +Harrigan could not fail to be of immediate assistance +to us in our desire to understand the remote life which +Plautus was dealing with.</p> + +<p class="indent">The plays of the Roman dramatist were deliberately +adapted from the Greek, and they therefore had an +avowedly literary source, whereas the immediate origin +of the plays performed in New York was only an unpretending +sketch for a variety-show; but both of +these groups had the same flavor of veracity in their +reproduction of the teeming life of the tenements. +Humble as is the beginning of the 'Mulligan Guard' +series, at least as humble is the beginning of the improvised +pieces of the Italians, the comedy of masks, +which Molière lifted into literature in his 'Etourdi,' +and in his 'Fourberies de Scapin.' In the hands of the +Italians the comedy of masks was absolutely unliterary, +since it was not even written, and its performers +were not only comedians, but acrobats also. And here +the drama is seen to be impinging on the special sphere +of the circus—just as it does again in the plays prepared +for the New York Hippodrome. It is more than probable +that this improvised comedy of the Italians is the +long development of a primitive semi-gymnastic, semi-dramatic +entertainment, given by a little group of +strollers, performing in the open market-place to please +the casual crowd that might collect.</p> + +<p class="indent">Equally unpretending was the origin of the French +melodrama, which Victor Hugo lifted into literature +in his 'Hernani' and 'Ruy Blas.' It began in the +temporary theaters erected for a brief season in one or +the other of the fairs held annually in different parts of +Paris. The performances in these playhouses were almost +exactly equivalent to those in our variety-shows; +they were medleys of song and dance, of acrobatic +feats and of exhibitions of trained animals. As in +our own variety-shows, again, there were also little +plays performed from time to time, at first scarcely +more than a framework on which to hang songs and +dances, but at last taking on a solider substance, until +finally they stiffened themselves into pathetic pieces +in three or more acts, capable of providing pleasure +for a whole evening. The humor was direct, and the +characters were painted in the primary colors; the +passions were violent, and the plots were arbitrary; +but the playwrights had discovered how to hold the +interest of their simple-minded spectators, and how to +draw tears and laughter at will.</p> + +<p class="indent">In fact, the more minutely the history of the stage +is studied, the more clearly do we perceive that the beginnings +of every form of the drama are strangely unpretentious, +and that literary merit is attained only in +the final stages of its development. Dramatic literature +is but the ultimate evolution of that which in the +beginning was only an insignificant and unimportant +experiment in the show business; and it must always +remain intimately related to the show business, even +when it climbs to the lonely peaks of the poetic drama. +Whatever its value, and however weighty its message, +it is still to be commented upon under the head of +"amusements," for if it does not succeed in amusing, +it ceases to exist except in the library, and even there +only for special students. It lives by its immediate +theatrical effectiveness alone, even if it can survive +solely by its literary quality.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">Those who are in the habit of gaging the drama by +this literary quality only are prone to deplore the bad +taste of the public which flocks to purely spectacular +pieces. But this again is no new thing, and it does not +disclose any decline in the ability to appreciate the +best. A century ago in London, when Sarah Siddons +and John Philip Kemble were in the full plenitude of +their powers, and when they were performing the noblest +plays of Shakspere, they were thrust aside for a season +or two while the theater was given up to empty melodramatic +spectacles like 'Castle Specter' and the 'Cataract +of the Ganges.' It was horrifying to the lovers +of the drama that these great actors in those great +plays should have to give way to the attraction exerted +on the public by a trained elephant, or by an imitation +waterfall; but it is equally horrifying to be informed +that the theater in London for which Shakspere wrote +his masterpieces, and in which he himself appeared as +an actor, was also used for fencing-matches, and for +bull-baitings and bear-baitings, and that the theater in +Athens for which Sophocles wrote his masterpieces, +and in which he may have appeared as an actor, was +also used for the annual cock-fight.</p> + +<p class="indent">So strong is the popular appreciation of spectacle +that the drama, the true theater as distinguished from +the mere show business, has always to fight for its +right to exist, and to hold its place in competition with +less intellectual and more sensational entertainments. +The playhouses of any American city are likely to have +a lean week whenever the circus comes to town, and +perhaps the chief reason why the most of them now +close in summer is to be sought not so much in the +frequent hot spells, as in the irresistible attraction exerted +by the base-ball games. The drama in Spain, +which flourished superbly in the days of Lope de +Vega and Calderon, sank into a sad decline when it +had to compete with the fiercer delights of the bullfight; +and the drama in Rome was actually killed out +by the overpowering rivalry of the sports of the arena, +the combats of gladiators, and the matching of men +with wild beasts. What is known to the economists +as Gresham's Law, according to which an inferior currency +always tends to drive out a superior, seems to +have an analog in the show business.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">II<br />THE LIMITATIONS OF THE STAGE<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE LIMITATIONS OF THE STAGE<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Few</span> competent critics would dispute the assertion +that the drama, if not actually the noblest of the arts, +is at all events the most comprehensive, since it can +invoke the aid of all the others without impairing its +own individuality or surrendering its right to be considered +the senior partner in any alliance it may make. +Poetry, oratory, and music, painting, sculpture, and +architecture, these the drama can take into its service, +with no danger to its own control. Yet even if the +drama may have the widest range of any of the arts, +none the less are its boundaries clearly defined. What +it can do, it does with a sharpness of effect and with +a cogency of appeal no other art can rival. But there +are many things it cannot do; and there are not a few +things that it can attempt only at its peril. Some of +these impossibilities and inexpediencies are psychologic +subtleties of character and of sentiment too delicate +and too minute for the magnifying lens of the theater +itself; and some of them are physical, too large in +themselves to be compressed into the rigid area of +the stage. In advance of actual experiment, it is not +always possible for even the most experienced of theatrical +experts to decide the question with certainty.</p> + +<p class="indent">Moreover, there is always the audience to be reckoned +with, and even old stagers like Henry Irving and +Victorien Sardou cannot foresee the way in which the +many-headed monster will take what is set before it. +When Percy Fitzgerald and W. G. Wills were preparing +an adaptation of the 'Flying Dutchman' for Henry +Irving, the actor made a suggestion which the authors +immediately adopted. The romantic legend has for +its hero a sea-captain condemned to eternal life until +he can find a maiden willing to share his lot; and when +at last he meets the heroine she has another lover, who +is naturally jealous of the new aspirant to her hand. +The young rival challenges Vanderdecken to a duel, +and what Irving proposed was that the survivor of +the fight should agree to throw the body of his rival +into the sea, and that the waves should cast up the +condemned Vanderdecken on the shore, since the ill-fated +sailor could not avoid his doom by death at the +hand of man. This was an appropriate development +of the tale; it was really imaginative; and it would +have been strangely moving if it had introduced into it +a ballad on the old theme. But in a play performed +before us in a theater its effect was not altogether what +its proposer had hoped for, altho he presented it with +all his marvelous command of theatrical artifice.</p> + +<p class="indent">The stage-setting Irving bestowed upon this episode +was perfectly in keeping with its tone. The spectators +saw the sandy beach of a little cove shut in by cliffs, +with the placid ocean bathed in the sunset glow. The +two men crossed swords on the strand; Vanderdecken +let himself be killed, and the victorious lover carried +his rival's body up the rocks and hurled it into the +ocean. Then he departed, and for a moment all was +silence. A shuddering sigh soon swept over the face +of the waters, and a ripple lapped the sand. Then a +little wave broke on the beach, and withdrew, rasping +over the stones. At last a huge roller crashed forward +and the sea gave up its dead. Vanderdecken lay high +and dry on the shore, and in a moment he staggered +to his feet, none the worse for his wounds. But unfortunately +the several devices for accomplishing this +result, admirable as they were, drew attention each +of them to itself. The audience could not help wondering +how the trick of the waves was being worked, and +when the Flying Dutchman was washed up by the +water, it was not the mighty deep rejecting Vanderdecken, +again cursed with life, that the spectators perceived, +but rather the dignified Henry Irving himself, +unworthily tumbled about on the dust of his own +stage. In the effort to make visible this imaginative +embellishment of the strange story, its magic potency +vanished. The poetry of the striking improvement +on the old tale had been betrayed by its translation +into the material realities of the theater, since the +concrete presentation necessarily contradicted the abstract +beauty of the idea.</p> + +<p class="indent">Here we find ourselves face to face with one of the +most obvious limitations of the stage—that its power +of suggestion is often greater than its power of actual +presentation. There are many things, poetic and +imaginative, which the theater can accomplish, after +a fashion, but which it ventures upon only at imminent +peril of failure. Many things which are startlingly +effective in the telling are ineffective in the actual seeing. +The mere mechanism needed to represent them +will often be contradictory, and sometimes even destructive. +Perhaps it may be advisable to cite another +example, not quite so cogent as Irving's 'Vanderdecken,' +and yet carrying the same moral. This other example +will be found in a piece by Sardou, a man who knew +all the possibilities of the theater as intimately as +Irving himself, and who was wont to utilize them +with indefatigable skill. Indeed, so frequently did the +French playwright avail himself of stage devices, and +so often was he willing to rely upon them, that not a +few critics of our latter-day drama have been inclined +to dismiss him as merely a supremely adroit theatrical +trickster.</p> + +<p class="indent">In his sincerest play, 'Patrie,' the piece which he +dedicated to Motley, and which he seems himself to +have been proudest of, Sardou invented a most picturesque +episode. The Spaniards are in possession of +Brussels; the citizens are ready to rise, and William +of Orange is coming to their assistance. The chiefs of +the revolt leave the city secretly and meet William at +night in the frozen moat of an outlying fort. A Spanish +patrol interrupts their consultation, and forces them +to conceal themselves. A little later a second patrol +is heard approaching, just when the return of the first +patrol is impending. For the moment it looks as tho +the patriots would be caught between the two Spanish +companies. But William of Orange rises to the occasion. +He calls on his "sea-wolves"; and when the +second patrol appears, marching in single file, there +suddenly spring out of the darkness upon every Spanish +soldier two fur-clad creatures, who throttle him, +bind him, and throw him into a hole in the ice of the +moat. Then they swiftly fill in this gaping cavity +with blocks of snow, and trample the path level above +it. And almost immediately after the sea-wolves have +done their deadly work and withdrawn again into +hiding, the first patrol returns, and passes all unsuspecting +over the bodies of their comrades—a very practical +example of dramatic irony.</p> + +<p class="indent">As it happened, I had read 'Patrie' some years before +I had an opportunity to see it on the stage, and +this picturesque scene had lingered in my memory so +that in the theater I eagerly awaited its coming. +When it arrived at last I was sadly disappointed. The +sea-wolves belied their appetizing name; they irresistibly +suggested a group of trained acrobats, and I found +myself carelessly noting the artifices by the aid of which +the imitation snowballs were made to fill the trapdoor +of the stage which represented the yawning hole +in the ice of the frozen moat. The thing told was picturesque, +but the thing seen was curiously unmoving; +and I have noted without surprise that in the latest +revival of 'Patrie' the attempt to make this episode +effective was finally abandoned, the sea-wolves being +cut out of the play.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">In 'Patrie' as in 'Vanderdecken' the real reason for +the failure of these mechanical devices is that the plays +were themselves on a superior level to those stage-tricks; +the themes were poetic, and any theatrical +effect which drew attention to itself interrupted the +current of emotional sympathy. It disclosed itself instantly +as incongruous, as out of keeping with the elevation +of the legend—in a word, as inartistic. A similar +effect, perhaps even more frankly mechanical, +would not be inartistic in a play of a lower type, and it +might possibly be helpful in a frankly spectacular +piece, even if this happened also to be poetic in intent. +In a fairy-play, a <i>féerie</i>, as the French term it, we expect +to behold all sorts of startling ingenuities of stage-mechanism, +whether the theme is delightfully imaginative, +as in Maeterlinck's beautiful 'Blue Bird,' or crassly +prosaic, as in the 'Black Crook' and the 'White Fawn.'</p> + +<p class="indent">In picturesque melodrama also, in the dramatization +of 'Ben Hur,' for example, we should be disappointed +if we were bereft of the wreck of the Roman galley, +and if we were deprived of the chariot race. These +episodes can be presented in the theater only by the +aid of mechanisms far more elaborate than those needed +for the scenes in 'Vanderdecken' and 'Patrie'; but +in 'Ben Hur' these mechanisms are not incongruous +and distracting as were the simpler devices of 'Vanderdecken' +and 'Patrie,' because the dramatization of +the romanticist historical novel is less lofty in its ambition, +less imaginative, less ethereally poetic. In +'Vanderdecken' and in 'Patrie' the tricks seemed to +obtrude themselves, whereas in 'Ben Hur' they were +almost obligatory. In certain melodramas with more +modern stories—in the amusing piece called the +'Round Up,' for example—the scenery is the main attraction. +The scene-painter is the real star of the +show. And there is no difficulty in understanding the +wail of the performer of the principal part in a piece of +this sort, when he complained that he was engaged to +support forty tons of scenery. "It's only when the +stage-carpenters have to rest and get their breath that +I have a chance to come down to the footlights and +bark for a minute or two."</p> + +<p class="indent">A moment's consideration shows that this plaintive +protest is unreasonable, however natural it may be. +In melodramas like the 'Round Up' and 'Ben Hur,' as +in fairy-plays like the 'Blue Bird,' the acting is properly +subordinated to the spectacular splendor of the whole +performance. When we enter a theater to behold a +play of either of these types, we expect the acting to +be adequate, no doubt, but we do not demand the +highest type of histrionic excellence. What we do anticipate, +however, is a spectacle pleasing to the eye +and stimulating to the nerves. In plays of these two +classes the appeal is sensuous rather than intellectual; +and it is only when the appeal of the play is to the +mind rather than to the senses that merely mechanical +effects are likely to be disconcerting.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. William Archer has pointed out that Ibsen in +'Little Eyolf,' has for once failed to perceive the strict +limitation of the stage when he introduced a flagstaff, +with the flag at first at half-mast, and a little later run +up to the peak. Now, there are no natural breezes in +the theater to flutter the folds of the flag, and every +audience is aware of the fact. This, then, is the dilemma: +either the flag hangs limp and lifeless against +the pole, which is a flat spectacle, or else its folds are +made to flutter by some concealed pneumatic blast or +electric fan, which instantly arouses the inquiring curiosity +of the audience. Here we find added evidence in +support of Herbert Spencer's invaluable principle of +Economy of Attention, which he himself applied only to +rhetoric, but which is capable of extension to all the +other arts—and to no one of them more usefully than +to the drama. At any given moment a spectator in +the theater has only so much attention to bestow upon +the play being presented before his eyes, and if any +portion of his attention is unduly distracted by some +detail—like either the limpness or the fluttering of a +flag—then he has just so much less to give to the play +itself.</p> + +<p class="indent">Very rarely, indeed, can we catch Ibsen at fault in a +technical detail of stage-management; he was extraordinarily +meticulous in his artful adjustment of the +action of his social dramas to the picture-frame stage +of our modern cosmopolitan theater. He was marvelously +skilful in endowing each of his acts with a +background harmonious for his characters; and nearly +always was he careful to refrain from the employment +of any scenic device which might attract attention to +itself. He eschewed altogether the more violent spectacular +effects, altho he did call upon the stage manager +to supply an avalanche in the final act of 'When +the Dead Awaken'; but even this bold convulsion of +nature was less incongruous than might be expected, +since it was not exhibited until the action of the play +itself was complete. In fact, the avalanche might be +described as only a pictorial epilog.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">The principle of sternly economizing the attention +of the audience can be violated by distractions far less +extraneous and far less extravagant than avalanches. +When Marmontel's forgotten tragedy of 'Cleopatra' +was produced in the eighteenth century at the Théâtre +Français, the misguided poet prevailed upon Vaucanson +to make an artificial asp, which the Egyptian queen +coiled about her arm at the end of the play, thereby +releasing a spring, whereupon the beast raised its head +angrily and emitted a shrill hiss before sinking its fangs +into Cleopatra's flesh. At the first performance a +spectator, bored by the tediousness of the tragedy, +rose to his feet when he heard the hiss of the tiny serpent: +"I agree with the asp!" he cried, as he made +his way to the door.</p> + +<p class="indent">But even if Vaucanson's skilful automaton had not +given occasion for this disastrous gibe, whatever attention +the audience might pay to the mechanical means +of Cleopatra's suicide was necessarily subtracted from +that available for the sad fate of Cleopatra herself. +If at that moment the spectators noted at all the hissing +snake, then they were not really in a fit mood to +feel the tragic death-struggle of "the serpent of old +Nile." A kindred blunder was manifest in a recent +sumptuously spectacular revival of 'Macbeth,' when +the three witches flew here and there thru the dim +twilight across the blasted heath, finally vanishing into +empty air. These mysterious flittings and disappearances +were achieved by attaching the performers of the +weird sisters to invisible wires, whereby they could be +swung aloft; the trick had been exploited earlier in +the so-called Flying Ballet, wherein it was a graceful +and amusing adjunct of the terpsichorean revels. But +in 'Macbeth' it emptied Shakspere's scene of its dramatic +significance, since the spectator waited for and +watched the startling flights of the witches, and admired +the dexterity with which their aerial voyages +were controlled; and as a result he failed to feel the +emotional importance of the interview between Macbeth +and the withered croons, whose untoward greetings +were to start the villain-hero on his downward +career of crime.</p> + +<p class="indent">In this same revival of 'Macbeth' an equally misplaced +ingenuity was lavished on the apparition of +Banquo's ghost at the banquet. The gruesome specter +was made mysteriously visible thru the temporarily +transparent walls of the palace, until at last he emerged +to take his seat on Macbeth's chair. The effect was +excellent in itself, and the spectators followed all the +movements of the ghost with pleased attention, more +or less forgetting Macbeth, and failing to note the +maddening effect of the apparition upon the seared +countenance of the assassin-king. In this revival of +'Macbeth' no opportunity was neglected to adorn the +course of the play with every possible scenic and mechanic +accompaniment; and the total result of these +accumulated artificialities of presentation was to rob +one of Shakspere's most poetic tragedies of nearly all +its poetry, and to reduce this imaginative masterpiece +to the prosaic level of a spectacular melodrama.</p> + +<p class="indent">Another of Shakspere's tragedies has become almost +impossible in our modern playhouses, because the +stage-manager does not dare to do without the spectacular +effects that the story seems to demand. Shakspere +composed 'King Lear' for the bare platform-stage +of the Globe Theater, devoid of all scenery, and supplied +with only the most primitive appliances for suggesting +rain and thunder; and he introduced three +successive storm scenes, each intenser in interest than +the one that went before, until the culmination comes +in perhaps the sublimest and most pitiful episode in +all tragedy, when the mad king and his follower, who +is pretending to be insane, and his faithful fool are +together out in the tempest. At the original production, +three centuries ago, the three storms may have +increased in violence as they followed one another; +but at best the fierceness of the contending elements +could then be only suggested, and the rain and the +thunder were not allowed to divert attention away +from the agonized plight of the mad monarch. But +to-day the three storm scenes are rolled into one, and +the stage-manager sets out to manufacture a realistic +tempest in rivalry with nature. The mimic artillery of +heaven and the simulated deluge from the skies which +the producer now provides may excite our artistic admiration +for his skill, but they distract our attention +from the coming together of the characters so strangely +met in the midst of the storm. The more realistically +the tempest is reproduced the worse it is for the tragedy +itself; and in most recent revivals the full effect of the +painful story has been smothered by the sound and +fury of the man-made storm.</p> + +<p class="indent">The counterweighted wires which permit the figures +of the Flying Ballet to soar over the stage and to float +aloft in the air, disturb the current of our sympathy +when they are employed to lend lightness to intangible +creatures like the weird sisters of Shakspere's tragedy; +but they have been more artistically utilized in two of +Shakspere's comedies to suggest the ethereality of +Puck and of Ariel. The action of the 'Midsummer +Night's Dream' takes place in fairy-land, and that of +the 'Tempest' passes in an enchanted island, and even +if we wonder for a moment how the levitation of these +airy spirits is achieved, this temporary distraction of +our attention is negligible in playful comedies like these +with all their scenes laid in a land of make-believe. +And yet it may be doubted whether even the 'Midsummer +Night's Dream' and the 'Tempest,' fairy-plays +as they are, do not on the whole lose more than +they gain from elaborate scenic and mechanical adjuncts. +They are of poetry all compact, and the more +simply they are presented, the less obtrusive the scenery +and the less protruded the needful effects, the more +the effort of the producer is centered upon preserving +the ethereal atmosphere wherein the characters live, +move, and have their being, the more harmonious the +performance is with the pure fancy which inspired these +two delightful pieces, then the more truly successful +is the achievement of the stage-manager.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">On the other hand, of course, the scenic accompaniment +of a poetic play, whether tragic or romantic or +comic, must never be so scant or so barren as to disappoint +the spectators. The stage-accessories must +be adequate and yet subordinate; they ought to resemble +the clothes of a truly well-dressed woman, in +that they never call attention to themselves altho they +can withstand and even reward intimate inspection. +This delicate ideal of artistic stage-setting, esthetically +satisfying, and yet never flamboyant, was completely +attained in the production of 'Sister Beatrice,' at the +New Theater, due to the skill and taste of Mr. Hamilton +Bell. The several manifestations of the supernatural +might easily have been over-emphasized; but a fine +restraint resulted in a unity of tone and of atmosphere, +so subtly achieved that the average spectator carried +away the memory of more than one lovely picture without +having let his thoughts wander away to consider +by what means he had been made to feel the presence +of a miracle.</p> + +<p class="indent">The special merit of this production of 'Sister Beatrice' +lay in the delicate art by which more was suggested +than could well be shown. In the theater, more +often than not, the half is greater than the whole, and +what is unseen is frequently more powerful than what +is made visible. In Mr. Belasco's 'Darling of the +Gods,' a singularly beautiful spectacle, touched at +times with a pathetic poetry, the defeated samurais +are at last reduced to commit hara-kiri. But we were +not made spectators of these several self-murders; we +were permitted to behold only the dim cane-brake into +which these brave men had withdrawn, and to overhear +each of them call out his farewell greetings to his +friends before he dealt himself the deadly thrust. If +we had been made witnesses of this accumulated self-slaughter +we might have been revolted by the brutality +of it. Transmitted to us out of a vague distance +by a few scattered cries, it moved us like the inevitable +close of a truly tragic tale.</p> + +<p class="indent">In the 'Aiglon' of M. Rostand, Napoleon's feeble son +finds himself alone with an old soldier of his father's +on the battle-field of Wagram; and in the darkness of +the night, and in the turmoil of a wind-storm the hysteric +lad almost persuades himself that he is actually +present at the famous fight, that he can hear the +shrieks of the wounded, and the groans of the dying, +and that he can see the hands and arms of the dead +stretched up from the ground. This is all in the sickly +boy's fancy, of course, and yet in Paris the author +had voices heard, and caused hands and arms to be +extended upward from the edge of the back drop, thus +vulgarizing his own imaginative episode by the presentation +of a concrete reality. Not quite so inartistic as +this, and yet frankly freakish was the arrangement of +the closet scene between Hamlet and his mother, when +Sarah-Bernhardt made her misguided effort to impersonate +the Prince of Denmark. On the walls of the +room where Hamlet talks daggers to the queen there +were full-length, life-sized portraits of her two successive +husbands, and when Hamlet bids her look on +this picture, and on this, the portrait of Hamlet's +father became transparent, and in its frame the spectators +suddenly perceived the ghost. This is an admirable +example of misplaced cleverness, of the search +for novelty for its own sake, of the sacrifice of the +totality of impression to a mere trick.</p> + +<p class="indent">'Hamlet' is the most poetic of plays, and the 'Aiglon' +does its best to be poetic, and therefore the less overt +spectacle there may be in the performance of these +dramas the easier it will be for the spectator to focus +his attention on the poetry itself. Even more pretentiously +poetic than the 'Aiglon' is 'Chantecler,' upon +which the ambitious author has also lavished a great +variety of stage-effects—as tho he were not quite willing +to rely for success upon his lyrical exuberance. +In M. Rostand's 'Aiglon' and 'Chantecler,' as in +Sarah-Bernhardt's 'Hamlet,' there was to be observed +a frequent confusion of the merely theatric with the +purely dramatic—a confusion to be found forty years +ago in Fechter's 'Hamlet.' That picturesque French +actor made over the English tragedy into a French +romantic melodrama; he kept the naked plot, and he +cut out all the poetry. He lowered Shakspere's play +to the level of the other melodramas in which he had +won success—for instance, 'No Thorofare,' due to the +collaboration of Dickens and Wilkie Collins, or the +earlier 'Fils de la Nuit,' acted in Paris long before +Fechter appeared on the English-speaking stage.</p> + +<p class="indent">The 'Son of the Night' was a pirate bold, personated, +of course, by Fechter, and in one act his long, low, +rakish craft with its black flag flying, skimmed across +the stage, cutting the waves, and dropping anchor close +to the footlights. The surface of the sea was represented +by a huge cloth, and the incessant motion of +the waves was due to the concealed activities of a +dozen boys. The play had so long a run that the sea-cloth +was worn dangerously thin. At last at one performance, +a rent spread suddenly and disclosed a disgusted +boy, just as the pirate ship with the Son of the +Night on its deck was preparing to come about. Fechter +was equal to the emergency. "Man overboard!" +he cried, and, leaning over the bow of the boat, he +grabbed the boy by the collar and pulled him on deck. +Probably very few of the spectators noticed the mishap, +and if they had all observed it, what matter? A +laugh or two, more or less, during the performance of +a prosaic melodrama, is of little or no consequence. A +disconcerting accident like this in a play like the 'Son +of the Night' does not cut any vital current of sympathy, +for this is a quality to which the piece could +make no claim. But in a truly poetic play a mishap +of this sort would be a misfortune in that it might precipitate +the interest and interrupt the harmony of attention +demanded by the imaginative drama itself.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">III<br />A MORAL FROM A TOY THEATER<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">A MORAL FROM A TOY THEATER<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 1881, when William Ernest Henley was hard put to +it to make a living, Sir Sidney Colvin kindly recommended +him for the editorship of the monthly <i>Magazine +of Art</i>. Among the contributors whom the new editor +called to his aid was Robert Louis Stevenson, and +among the contributions the latter made to the former's +magazine was the highly characteristic and self-revelatory +essay, entitled 'A Penny Plain and Two Pence +Colored,' now included in the volume called 'Memories +and Portraits.' In this playful paper Stevenson makes +one of his many returns to his boyhood, whose moods +he could always recapture at will with the assistance of +that imaginative memory which was one of his special +gifts, and he was able to replevin from the dim limbo +of things half forgotten his longing delight in the toy +theater, the scenes for which and the necessary properties +and the several characters themselves in their successive +dresses were to be procured printed on very thin +cardboard, so that the proud possessor might cut them +out at will. If the youthful capitalist had accumulated +twopence, he could acquire these treasures already +resplendent in their glowing hues; and yet +Stevenson held that the lad was happier who parted +with only a single penny, reserving the half of his fortune +for the purchase of the paints wherewith he might +himself vivify this scenery and these properties, and so +cause his characters to start to life, emblazoned in the +bold colors which please the puerile mind.</p> + +<p class="indent">These sheets of thin cardboard, with thin little pamphlets +containing the text of the pieces to be performed +in the toy theater, were originally known as Skelt's +Juvenile Drama; and one Skelt seems to have been +its originator, probably in the early part of the nineteenth +century. Apparently he parted with his precious +stock in trade to one Park, who passed it on in due +season to one Webb, who transmitted it to one Redington, +until at last it descended to its present owner, +one B. Pollock, of 73 Hoxton Street, London, N. +Stevenson affected to think that Skelt's Juvenile +Drama had "become, for the most part, a memory"; +yet it survives now in the second decade of the twentieth +century as Pollock's Juvenile Drama, and Mr. +Pollock proclaims that he has republished some score +plays, and that he keeps them always in print, plain +and colored. He offers, furthermore, to supply "Drop +Scenes, Top Drops, Orchestras, Foot and Water Pieces, +Single Portraits, Combats—Fours, Sixes, Twelves, +Sixteens—Fairies, Horse Soldiers, Clowns, Rifles, Animals, +Birds, Butterflies, Houses, Views, Ships, &c., +plain and colored, 1/2<i>d</i> sheet plain, 1<i>d</i> sheet colored."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_057" id="image_"></a> +<img src="images/i_057.png" alt="" title="" /><br /> +<span class="caption">Taken from upper half of Plate No. 1, which is the title-page of the series, this section of which +is also a guide for the setting of the first scene in the 'Miller and His Men'</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">It is from the covers of "the book of the words" of +the 'Miller and His Men' that this enticing proclamation +is taken—the 'Miller and His Men,' "adapted only +for Pollock's characters and scenes," and accompanied +by "7 Plates characters, 11 Scenes, 3 Wings, Total 21 +Plates." The persons of the drama and the scenes +wherein that drama is played out to its fiery end, are +all in the bolder manner of the Old Masters, who sought +the broadest effects, and who willingly neglected petty +details. How bold and how broad the manner and +the effects can best be judged by an honest transcription +from the final page of the book of words, wherein +the terse and tense dialog, single speech clashing with +single speech, is accompanied by stage directions for +the instruction of the Young Masters who are about +to produce the sublime spectacle:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="indent"><i>Enter Grindorf left hand, plate 4.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Enter Karl and Friberg, swords drawn, plate 4, followed by +the Troops, right hand, plate 7.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Grindorf</i>: Ha! ha! I have escaped you, have I?</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Karl</i>: But you are caught in your own trap.</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Grindorf</i>: Spiller!—Golotz! Golotz! I say!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Count</i>: Villain! you cannot escape us now! Surrender, or +instantly meet thy fate!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Grindorf</i>: Surrender! I have sworn never to descend from +this place alive!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Enter Lothair, as Spiller, 3rd dress, left hand, plate 7.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Grindorf</i>: Spiller, let my bride appear.</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Exit Lothair.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Enter Kehnar, right hand, plate 1.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Enter Ravina with torch, plate 7.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Ravina</i>: Before it is too late, restore Claudine to her father's +arms!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Grindorf</i>: Never!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Ravina</i>: Then I know my course!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Enter Lothair with Claudine, left hand, plate 6.</i></p></blockquote> + +<blockquote><p class="indent"><i>Kehnar</i>: My child! Ah, Grindorf, spare her!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Grindorf</i>: Hear me, Count Friberg; if you do not withdraw +your followers, by my hand she dies!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Count</i>: Never, till thou art yielded to justice!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Grindorf</i>: No more—this to her heart!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Lothair</i>: And this to thine!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Exit Lothair and Claudine, and Grindorf.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Re-enter Grindorf and Lothair fighting, plate 6, fight and exit.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Grindorf to be put on wounded, plate 7.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Re-enter Lothair with Claudine, plate 6.</i></p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Lothair</i>: Ravina, fire the train!</p> + +<p class="indent"><i>Scene changes to explosion, Scene 11, No. 9.</i></p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="indent">The words are striking and the actions are startling, +and it is no wonder that plate 7 and scene 11, No. 9, +filled with joy the heart of Robert Louis Stevenson +when he was a perfervid Scot of fourteen. In his manly +maturity, when he had risen to an appreciation of portraits +by Raeburn, and when he had sat at the feet of +that inspired critic of painting, his cousin, R. A. M. +Stevenson, he admitted that he had no desire to insist +upon the art of Skelt's purveyors. "Those wonderful +characters that once so thrilled our soul with their bold +attitude, array of deadly engines and incomparable costume, +to-day look somewhat pallidly," he confessed +regretfully; "the extreme hard favor of the heroine +strikes me, I had almost said with pain; the villain's +scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and the +scenes themselves, those once incomparable landscapes, +seem the efforts of a prentice hand. So much of fault +we can find; but, on the other side, the impartial critic +rejoices to remark the presence of a great unity of +gusto; of those direct claptrap appeals which a man +is dead and buriable when he fails to answer; of the +footlight glamor, the ready-made, barefaced, transpontine +picturesque, a thing not one with cold reality, +but how much dearer to the mind!"</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_061" id="image_061"></a> +<img src="images/i_061.png" alt="" title="" /><br/> +<span class="caption">A group of the principal characters from Pollock's juvenile drama, the 'Miller and His Men,' +cut out and assembled as called for in Scene 10, a part of which is quoted in the text</span></div> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">"Transpontine" is a Briticism for which the equivalent +Americanism is "Bowery." The plays which +Skelt vended for the enjoyment of romantic youth were +not of his own invention, nor were they the work of his +hirelings; they were artfully simplified condensations +of melodramas long popular in London at the theaters +on the Surrey side of the Thames, and in New York +at the Bowery. In French's Standard Drama, the +Acting Edition, to be obtained in yellow covers for +fifteen cents, one may find "the 'Miller and His Men,' +a Melo-Drama in Two Acts, by F. Pocock, Esq., author +of the 'Robber's Wife,' 'John of Paris,' 'Hit or Miss,' +'Magpie and the Maid,' etc., with original casts, scene +and property plots, costumes, and all the stage business." +And the list of properties required for the final scene +helps to elucidate what may have been cryptic in the +dialog quoted from the compacted adaptation of Skelt:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="indent"><i>Scene 4</i>:—<i>Slow match laid from stage in C. to mill. Lighted torch +for Ravina. Red fire and explosion 3 E. L. H. Wood crash +3 E. L. H. Six stuffed figures of robbers behind mill, L. H. +Eight guns, swords, and belts for hussars. Disguise cloak for +Lothair. Fighting swords for Lothair and Wolf.</i> [Wolf is +evidently another name for Grindorf.]</p> +</blockquote> + +<p class="indent">Thus we see that the pleasant country of the Skelts +stretched from the Surrey side of the Thames to the +Bowery bank of the Hudson, and that the Skeltic +temperament was purely melodramatic, its bass notes +being transposed to adjust it to the clear treble of +boyhood. It is greatly to be regretted that no inquiring +scholar has yet devoted himself to the task of tracing +the history of English melodrama, as Professor +Thorndike has traced the history of English tragedy. +Of course, there have always been melodramatic plays +ever since the drama began to assert itself as an independent +form of art. There is a melodramatic element +in the 'Medea' of Euripides, as there is in the +'Rodogune' of Corneille; and in the Elizabethan theater +the so-called tragedy of blood is nothing if not +melodramatic. Yet the special form of English melodrama +that flourished in the later years of the eighteenth +century and the earlier years of the nineteenth deserves +a more careful study than it has yet received. Apparently +it was due partly to a decadence of the native +type of drama represented by Lillo's 'George Barnwell,' +and partly to the stimulation received first from +the emotional pieces of the German Kotzebue, and +afterward from the picturesque pieces of the French +Pixérécourt. And not to be neglected is the influence +immediately exerted on the popular plays of the latter +part of the period by the romances of Scott and of +Cooper.</p> + +<p class="indent">Altho these plays were devoid of literary merit, of +style, of veracity of character delineation, of sincerity +of motive, they were not without theatrical effectiveness—or +they could never have maintained themselves +in the theater. As Sir Arthur Pinero has seen +clearly, "a drama which was sufficiently popular to +be transferred to the toy theaters was almost certain +to have a sort of rude merit in its construction. The +characterization would be hopelessly conventional, the +dialog bald and despicable—but the situations would +be artfully arranged, the story told adroitly and with +spirit." In other words, the compounders of these +melodramas were fairly skilful in devising plots likely +to arouse and to sustain the interest of uncritical +audiences. Probably they were unfamiliar with Voltaire's +assertion that the success of a play depends +mainly upon the choice of its story; and it is unlikely +that they had any knowledge of Aristotle's declaration +that plot is primarily more important than character; +but they accomplished their humble task as well as if +they had been heartened by these authorities. These +ingenious and ingenuous pieces were none of them contributions +to English dramatic literature, and they are +not enshrined in its annals; but they were effective +stage-plays, nevertheless, and they had, therefore, an +essential quality lacking in the closet-dramas which +Shelley and Byron were composing in those same +years.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">In the illuminating lecture on Stevenson as a writer +of plays delivered by Sir Arthur Pinero in 1903 before +the members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, +the confessions contained in 'A Penny Plain and +Two Pence Colored' are skilfully employed to explain +Stevenson's flat failure as a playwright. Many of his +ardent admirers must have wondered why it was that +he adventured four times into dramatic authorship, +only to undergo a fourfold shipwreck. Yet Sir James +Barrie and Mr. John Galsworthy, essayists and novelists +at first, as Stevenson was, strayed successfully from +prose fiction into the acted drama. Was not Stevenson +as anxious for this theatrical triumph as any one +of these? Was he not as richly dowered with dramatic +power, as inventive, as responsive to opportunity, as +ready to master a new craft? Why, then, did he fail +where they have succeeded?</p> + +<p class="indent">For these baffling questions Sir Arthur Pinero has +an acceptable answer. Stevenson was unable to establish +himself as a play-maker, first, because he did +not take the art of play-making seriously; he did not +put his full strength in it, mind and soul and body, +contenting himself when he was a man with playing +at play-making as he had played with his toy theater +when he was a boy. The second cause of his disappointment +as a dramatist was due to the abiding influence +of this toy theater, and to the fact that the +pieces he attempted were planned in rivalry with the +'Miller and His Men,' and therefore that they were +hopelessly out of date before they were conceived. +(There is a third reason, not mentioned by Sir Arthur, +and yet suggesting itself irresistibly to any one who +knew the editor of the <i>Magazine of Art</i> personally; all +four of Stevenson's attempts at play-writing were made +in collaboration with Henley, who was the least +equipped by temper and by temperament for the practise +of dramaturgy.)</p> + + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_067" id="image_067"></a> +<img src="images/i_067.png" alt="Scene II POLLOCK'S SCENES IN THE MILLER and his MEN. Nº9 + +London. Published by B Pollock,73 Hoxton Street Hoxton" title="Scene II POLLOCK'S SCENES IN THE MILLER and his MEN. Nº9 + +London. Published by B Pollock,73 Hoxton Street Hoxton" /><br /> +<span class="caption">Explosion of the mill. A back drop in the 'Miller and His Men,' Scene II</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Yet even if Stevenson had worked alone, and even +if he had taken the new art seriously, he could never +have won a place among the playwrights until he had +fought himself free from the sinuous coils of Skeltery. +In his youth he had saved his pence to purchase the +accessories of Skelt's Juvenile Drama with boyish delight +in the acquisition of things longed for to be possessed +at last. When he had purchased plate 7 and +scene 11, No. 9, he thought they were his possessions. +But, of a truth, he was their possession, even if he did +not know his slavery. As a man he was subdued to +what he had worked in as a boy; and when he wanted +to write plays of his own, he had no freedom to follow +the better models of his own day; he was a bondman +to Skelt, a thrall to Park, a minion to Webb, a chattel +to Redington and to Pollock. "What am I?" he asked +in his self-revelatory essay, humorously exaggerating, +no doubt, yet subconsciously stating the exact truth; +"What am I? What are life, art, letters, the world, +but what my Skelt has made them? He stamped +himself upon my immaturity." And the impression +was then so deep that it could not be effaced in maturity. +The boy in Stevenson survived, instead of dying when +the man was born.</p> + +<p class="indent">The art of play-writing, like the art of story-telling, +and, indeed, like all the other arts, demands both a +native gift and an acquired craft. Its basic principles +are the same ever since the drama began; but its immediate +methods vary at different times and in different +countries. While every artist must say what it is +given him to say, he can say it acceptably only by acquiring +the method of speech employed by his immediate +predecessors. However original he may prove +himself at the end, in the beginning he can only imitate +the methods and borrow the processes and avail himself +of the practises which the elder craftsmen are employing +successfully at the moment when he sets himself +to learn their trade. He must—to use the apt term +of the engineers—he must keep himself abreast of +"state of the art." This is what the great dramatists +have ever done; Sophocles follows in the footsteps of +Æschylus, as Shakspere emulates Marlowe and Kyd, +and as Molière went to school to the adroit and acrobatic +Italian comedians. These great dramatists were +perfectly content to begin by taking over the patterns +devised by their immediate predecessors in play-making, +even if they were soon to enlarge these patterns +and so modify them to suit their even larger needs.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_071" id="image_071"></a> +<img src="images/i_071.png" alt="POLLOCK'S Characters in the MILLER and his MEN. Plate 7" title="POLLOCK'S Characters in the MILLER and his MEN. Plate 7" /><br /> +<span class="caption">Plate No. 7, complete as published, ready to be cut out and put into use in the toy theater</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Now, the state of the art when Stevenson turned to +the theater was in accord with the picture-frame stage +of to-day, with a single set to the act, and without the +soliloquies and the confidential asides to the audience +which may then have been proper enough on the apron-stage +of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. +Even in the lower grade of playhouse, where rude and +crude melodramas were performed, the method and +the manner of the 'Miller and His Men' had long departed. +The pleasure that melodrama can give is +perennial; but its processes vary in accord with the +changing conditions of the theater. The door was +open for Stevenson to write melodrama, if he preferred +that species of play, and if he desired to varnish it +with literature as he was to varnish the police-novel +or mystery-story in the 'Wrecker.' But if he sought +to do this, he was bound to inform himself as to the +state of the art at the instant of composition. If he +shut his eyes to the changed conditions of the theater +since the 'Miller and His Men' had won a wide popularity +in the playhouse, then he made an unpardonable +blunder, for the battle was lost before he could deploy +his forces. He might have been forewarned by the +failure of Charles Lamb in a like attempt. When +Lamb's Elizabethan imitation 'John Woodvil' was rejected +for Drury Lane by John Philip Kemble as not +"consonant with the taste of the age"; its exasperated +author cried: "Hang on the age! I'll write for antiquity!" +But those who write for antiquity cannot +complain if they do not delight their contemporaries. +It is to his contemporaries, and not to antiquity or to +posterity, that every true dramatist has appealed.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">And as Stevenson might have taken warning from +the sad fate of Lamb, so he might have found his profit +in considering the happy fortune of Victor Hugo, who +also had a taste for melodrama. When the leader of +the French romanticists felt that it was incumbent +upon him to conquer the theater which the classicists +held as their last stronghold, he was swift to consider +the state of the art. He sought immediate success +upon the stage, and the most successful plays of that +period in France were the melodramas of Pixérécourt, +and of his followers, and therefore Hugo sat himself +down to spy out the secrets of their craft. He made +himself master of their methods, and he put together +the striking and startling plots of 'Hernani' and 'Ruy +Blas' in strict accord with their formulas, certain that +he could varnish with literature their melodramatic +actions. So glittering was his varnish, so brilliant was +his metrical rhetoric, so glowing were his golden verses, +that he blinded the spectators and kept the most of +them from peering beneath at his arbitrary and artificial +skeleton of supporting melodramatic structure. +To-day, after fourscore years, we can see just what it +is that Hugo did; and his plays, superb as they are in +their lyric adornment, stand revealed as frank melodramas, +lacking sincerity of motive and veracity of +character drawing. But when Hugo wrote them they +were in Kemble's phrase "consonant with the taste of +the age," and the best of them have not yet worn out +their welcome in the theater.</p> + +<p class="indent">Stevenson did not heed the warning of Lamb, and +he did not profit by the example of Hugo. 'Deacon +Brodie' was born out of date; so was 'Admiral Guinea'; +and all the varnish of literature which the two collaborators +applied externally and with loving solicitude +availed naught. It is due to his entanglement in the +strangling coils of Skeltery that Stevenson did not take +the drama seriously. He seemed to have looked at it +as something to be tossed off lightly to make money in +the interstices of honest work. In his stories, long and +short, he strove for effect, no doubt, but he was bent +also on achieving sincerity and veracity. In his plays +he made little effort for either sincerity or veracity, so +far at least as his plot was concerned; and he thought +he could lift these concoctions to the level of literature +by the polish of his dialog, and by qualities applied on +the outside instead of being developed from the inside. +He seems to have believed that in the drama, at least, +he could attain beauty by constructing his ornament +instead of by ornamenting his construction, ignoring or +ignorant of the fact that in the drama, the construction, +if only it be solid enough, and four square to all +the winds that blow, needs no ornament and is most +impressive in its stark simplicity.</p> + +<p class="indent">In his boyhood Goethe had also played with a toy +theater, and it was a puppet-show piece which first +called his attention to the mighty theme of his supreme +poem; but the great German poet, captivated as he +may have been by his youthful experience, was able in +his manhood to free himself from its shackles. He +came in time to have a profound insight into the principles +of dramatic art, and of the dramaturgic craft. +In his old age he talked about the theater freely and +frequently to Eckermann; and there are few of his +utterances which do not furnish food for reflection. +Here is one of them:</p> + +<blockquote><p class="indent">Writing for the stage is something peculiar; and he who +does not understand it had better leave it alone. Every one +thinks that an interesting fact will appear interesting on the +boards—nothing of the kind! Things may be very pretty to +read, and very pretty to think about; but as soon as they are +put upon the stage the effect is quite different; and that which +has charmed us in the closet will probably fall flat on the boards.... +Writing for the stage is a trade that one must understand, +and requires a talent that one must possess. Both are uncommon, +and where they are not combined, we have scarcely any +good result.</p></blockquote> + +<p class="indent">That Stevenson had the native gift of the dramatist +is undisputable, and Sir Arthur Pinero in his lecture +was able to make this clear. But "writing for the +stage is also a trade that one must acquire"; and when +Stevenson sought to acquire it he apprenticed himself +to Skelt not to Sardou, to Redington and Pollock, not +to Augier and Dumas.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1914.)</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_077" id="image_077"></a> +<img src="images/i_077.png" alt="" title="" /><br/> +<span class="caption">Grindoff and banditti carousing. Lower half of Plate No. 5, Pollock's characters in the +'Miller and His Men'</span></div> + +<p class="indent">P.S.—After the publication of this paper in <i>Scribner's +Magazine</i>, a friendly reader in Great Britain was +kind enough to copy out for me this Skeltian lyric, +which appeared in the London <i>Fun</i> in 1868, and which +was probably rimed by Henry S. Leigh:</p> + +<p class="center">AN EARLY STAGE</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah me! since first, long, long ago,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">I learned to love the British stage,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">It has—or I have—altered so,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">It scarce receives my patronage!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Where are the villain's spangled tabs,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">His cloak, his ringlets, and his belt?</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Where are his scowls, his growls, his stabs,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">As shown of old by Park and Skelt?</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Once was I manager myself,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And played the 'Miller and his Men';</span><br /> +<span class="i0">My company—ah, happy elf!</span><br /> +<span class="i2">I had no trouble with them then—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">They never sulked, forgot their lines,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Threw up their parts, or asked for "gelt"—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">For as the reader p'r'aps divines—</span><br /> +<span class="i2">I got them all of Park and Skelt.</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I stuck them on, and cut them out,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">I painted them with colors bright;</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I scattered tinsel-specks about,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And made them things of beauty, quite—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Not joys forever—ne'ertheless,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">They've vanished just as snowflakes melt.</span><br /> +<span class="i0">None can restore the bliss, I guess,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">I once derived from Park and Skelt.</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How I revered the artist's skill</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Who did my heroes represent—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">With scowls the very soul to thrill—</span><br /> +<span class="i2">With one leg straight and one leg bent!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">I loved his ladies full of grace,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And on their beauties fondly dwelt:—</span><br /> +<span class="i0">My first pictorial love could trace</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Her pedigree to Park and Skelt.</span><br /> +</div> + +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah me! 'tis many a year since I</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Those dear old plates—a penny plain</span><br /> +<span class="i0">And two-pence colored—did espy;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">I ne'er shall see their like again!</span><br /> +<span class="i0">The world's with disappointment rife,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">And I have far too often felt</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That actors now are less like life</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Than those I bought of Park and Skelt!</span> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">IV<br /> +WHY FIVE ACTS?<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">WHY FIVE ACTS?<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the eighteenth century, both in England and in +France, every stately and ponderous tragedy and every +self-respecting comedy obeyed the obligation imposed +by long tradition and duly stretched itself out to the +full measure of five acts, no more and no less. It felt +bound thus to distend itself, even tho its theme might +be far too frail for so huge a frame, and even tho the +unfortunate author often found himself at his wit's +end to piece out his play's end. Any one who has had +occasion to read widely in the works of the eighteenth +century playwrights cannot fail to feel abundant sympathy +for the harassed poet who plaintively called +on Parliament to pass a law abolishing fifth acts altogether. +This unduly distressed dramatist was an +Englishman; but about the same time a Frenchman, +weary of contemplating the frequent emptiness of the +contemporary tragic stage, sarcastically remarked that, +after all, it must be very easy <i>not</i> to write a tragedy +in five acts.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet if tragedy was to be written at all, it had to have +five acts, since a smaller number would not seem proportionate +to a truly tragic subject. But why five +acts? Why has five the number sacred to the tragic +muse? Why did even the comic muse demand it? +Why does George Meredith, discussing comedy, declare +that "five is dignity with a trailing robe; whereas +one, or two, or three acts would be short skirts, and +degrading." Why not three acts, or seven? Why was +it that any other number of acts was unthinkable—or +at least never thought of?</p> + +<p class="indent">Questions like these seem to have floated before the +mind of the Abbé d'Aubignac, writing in the seventeenth +century, and he came very near putting to +himself the query which serves as a title for this chapter. +"Poets have generally agreed that all Drammas +regularly should have neither more nor less than Five +Acts; and the Proof of this is the general observation +of it; but for the Reason, I do not know whether there +be any founded in Nature. Rhetorick has this advantage +over Poetry in the Parts of Oration, that the +Exord, Narration, Confirmation and Peroration are +founded upon a way of discoursing natural to all Men.... +But for the Five Acts of the Drammatick Poem, +they have not been framed upon any sound ground."</p> + +<p class="indent">That the division of a drama into five parts was accepted +in every civilized country as the only possible +division, seems very strange indeed, when we consider +that there is really no artistic justification for it, nor +any logical necessity. Like every other work of art +a play ought to have a single subject, a clearly defined +topic; in other words, it ought to have Unity of Action. +There is no denying that some of the greatest artists +have, now and again, been tempted to deal with two +themes at the same time, combining these as best they +could in a single work at the risk of leaving us a little +in doubt as to their intention; but in the immense majority +of acknowledged masterpieces the interest is +carefully centered in a single object. In these masterpieces +the action is single and unswerving, sweeping +forward irresistibly to its inevitable end.</p> + +<p class="indent">If, therefore, we accept the Unity of Action as a +general rule, binding upon all artists, we can hardly +deny that the most obviously natural arrangement +for the story is to set it forth in one act, without any +intermission or subdivision whatsoever—a single action +in a single act. Yet it is the play in three acts which +we are bound to recognize at once as possessing the +ideal form, since it enables the dramatist to set apart +the three divisions, which Aristotle declared to be essential +to a well-constructed tragedy—the beginning, +the middle, and the end—each presented in an act of +its own. To put a play into more than three acts is +possible only by halving one or another of these three +essential parts. In a four-act play, the beginning may +be split into two acts; and in a five-act play the middle +may also be subdivided.</p> + +<p class="indent">The logic of the three-act form, and the convenience +of it also, are so obvious that ever since the tyranny +of the Procrustean framework in five acts was abolished +in the middle years of the nineteenth century, practical +playwrights of all countries have favored it more +and more. The young Dumas used it in his later plays, +and so did Ibsen, that consummate master of stagecraft, +emancipated from empty traditions, but profiting +shrewdly by every available device of his immediate +predecessors. If the four-act form is also popular +to-day, this seems to be because the modern dramatist, +intending a play in three acts, finds himself forced by +sheer press of matter, to subdivide one of the essential +members, as Sir Arthur Pinero had to do in the 'Second +Mrs. Tanqueray' and Mr. Henry Arthur Jones in the +'Liars.' Even the opera, which liked the larger framework +of five acts when Scribe was writing librettos for +Halévy and Meyerbeer, is now content with only three, +since Wagner revealed his skill as a librettist.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is true that Freytag, in his sadly old-fashioned +treatise on 'Technic of the Drama,' accepted without +cavil the five-act form, and even attempted to justify +it by asserting that there are in fact five divisions of a +tragic action. He symbolized the arrangement of a +drama in a pyramidal structure, declaring that it +ascends from the Introduction to the Climax, and then +descends to the Catastrophe. Obviously these are +only different terms for the beginning, the middle, and +the end. But he vainly imagined two other members, +the Rise, which intervenes between the Introduction +and the Climax, and the Fall, which he inserted between +the Climax and the Catastrophe. Obviously, +again, this is an explanation after the event; and it +seems to have its origin solely in his acceptance of the +five-act form. And Freytag was forced to abandon his +own theory when he considered honestly certain of the +masterpieces of the modern drama. He admitted it +to be "impossible that the single acts should correspond +entirely to the five great divisions of the action." He +asserted that "in the Rising Action, the first stage was +usually in the first act, the last sometimes in the third; +of the Falling Action the beginning and the end were +sometimes taken in the third and fifth acts." Yet he +failed to see that if he made this admission, he cut the +ground from under his feet, and that there was no longer +any acceptable reason for his insistence upon the five-act +form.</p> + +<p class="indent">Freytag had no doubt at all as to the necessity of +the division into five acts. He received it with blind +faith, as tho it had been prescribed by divine authority. +Yet if he had chosen to explore the early history of the +drama in his own tongue, he would have found Hans +Sachs sometimes extending his plays into six acts, and +even into seven. And if he had cared to consider the +drama of the Spaniards he would have seen that the +most of the plays of Calderon are in three acts—a division +which the great dramatic poet of Spain had taken +over, as he had taken over so much else, from his masterful +predecessor, Lope de Vega. In his interesting +and illuminating little treatise on the art of writing +plays, Lope de Vega gave the credit of establishing the +three-act form to Virues. Plays had previously been +written in four acts; as Lope puts it pleasantly: "The +drama had gone on all fours, like a child, and truly it +was then in its infancy."</p> + +<p class="indent">Freytag ignored or was ignorant of Hans Sachs and +Calderon. His mind was fixed on Goethe and on +Schiller, altho his vision also included Shakspere, upon +whom the two German poets had more or less modeled +themselves. The tradition of the five-act form might +not obtain in the earliest German drama, as it did not +obtain in the Spanish; but it was firmly established in +the later German drama, in the English, and in the +French. It is easy to see that the later Germans derived +it from the French and the English; but where +did the French and the English get it? Where could +they get it? No such division existed in the medieval +drama, in the mysteries and in the miracle-plays, out +of which the drama of every modern language has been +developed. No such division existed in the Greek +drama, which has served as a standard and as a stimulus +to the drama of every modern literature. A Greek +tragedy was represented without any intermission in a +single, long unbroken act; and if a sequence of three +plays was sometimes performed, one after another, on +the same day, and dealing with successive periods of +the same story, this trilogy might suggest a division +into three parts. Nor is any hint of the duty of dividing +a tragedy into five parts to be discovered anywhere +in Aristotle.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">And yet we must go back to the Greek theater if we +want to see why it is that the 'Femmes Savantes' of +Molière and the 'School for Scandal' of Sheridan are +each of them in five acts. But it is not from a Greek +that we get the law that this division was obligatory +on all self-respecting dramatists; it is from a Roman, +writing at a time when the drama of his own language +had been ousted from the stage by pantomimic spectacle +and by gladiatorial combat. It is Horace, who, +in his epistle on the art of poetry, declares the necessity +of five acts:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">Ne brevior, neu sit quinto productior actu</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Fabula quae posci vult et spectata reponi.</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Sir Theodore Martin rendered this in an English +rimed couplet, which does not completely convey the +meaning of the two Latin lines, but which will serve to +show the rigidity of the rule laid down by the Roman +poet:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">Five acts a play must have, nor more nor less,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">To keep the stage and have a marked success.</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">But this still leaves us groping in the dark. Why +did Horace declare this law? What warrant had he? +What put the idea into his head? These are questions +answered by a French scholar, M. Weil; in one of his +ingenious and learned 'Études sur le Drame Antique,' +he explains that Horace derived much of his theory of +the poetic art from the Alexandrian critics, and more +particularly from the writings of a certain Neoptolemus +of Parium. Probably the Alexandrian authors +of tragedy had been led to adopt a division into five +acts by following the example of Euripides, whose practise +was not uniform, but who tended to reduce to +four the number of the lyric odes in his tragedies, thus +separating the purely dramatic passages into five parts.</p> + +<p class="indent">In Athens the drama had been slowly evolved out +of the tragic songs; and in the surviving tragedies of +Æschylus, the earliest of the three great dramatic poets +of Greece, we discover that the choral odes are more +abundant than the dialog which carries on the plot. +In the extant plays of his mighty successor, Sophocles, +the drama is seen emerging triumphant, but the lyrical +passages are still frequent and important. In the later +pieces of Euripides, the third and most modern of the +Attic tragedians, we note that the drama has almost +wholly disengaged itself from the lyric out of which it +sprang. In Æschylus and in Sophocles the number of +choral odes and the number of episodes, of purely dramatic +passages in dialog, is never fixed, varying from +play to play as the plot might demand. But in Euripides +the choral odes are more detached from the drama; +beautiful in themselves, they seem to exist rather for +their own sake than in any integral relation to the play +itself. And apparently Euripides was far more interested +in his play, in his plot, and in his characters, +than in these extraneous lyric passages, so he reduced +them to the lowest possible number, generally to four, +serving, so to speak, as exquisite interact music, separating +the pathetic play into five episodes in dialog.</p> + +<p class="indent">The Alexandrian tragedians came long after Euripides, +and to their sophisticated taste his pathetic and +emotional plays appealed far more than the austerer +and manlier masterpieces of his two great predecessors. +Apparently they accepted his form as final; they +may even have left out the choruses altogether; and +then their tragedies had five separate episodes—in +other words, five acts. It is these lost Alexandrian +tragedies, composed in the decadent days of the Greek +drama, which seem to have served as the model for +Seneca, the eloquent rhetorician—even tho he frequently +took over the theme and often more or less of +the structure of certain of the dramas of Euripides.</p> + +<p class="indent">The tragedies of Seneca are to be considered rather +as dramatic poems than as poetic dramas, since they +were intended not really for performance by actors, +in a theater, before an audience, but for recitation by +a single elocutionist in a private house—much as a +professional reader of our own time might recite unaided +a more or less dramatic poem by Shelley or Byron +or Browning. Coming long after Horace, Seneca unhesitatingly +accepted all of the restrictions insisted +upon by the Latin lyrist—including the purely academic +limitation of the number of speakers taking part in any +dialog to three, a limitation absolutely absurd in a +poem not intended for actual acting and not forced to +conform to the accidental conditions of the Attic stage. +Obeying also the other rule which he found in Horace's +codification of the laws of dramatic poetry, the Hispano-Roman +rhetorician was careful always to cut up +his play into five parts. But he saw his profit in retaining +the chorus, since this could be made to serve +as the appropriate mouthpiece for the elaborate passages +of elocutionary splendor in which he delighted.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is not to be wondered at that the Italian scholars +of the Renascence followed the precept of Horace and +the practise of Seneca. They were far more at home +in Latin than they were in Greek; and they could +hardly help reading into the literature of Athens what +they were already familiar with in the authors of +Rome. To them Seneca was as imposing as Sophocles, +and Horace was almost as weighty as Aristotle. So it +is that Scaliger and Minturno prescribe five acts, and +that Castelvetro (always more practical in his point +of view) points out that poets seem to have found the +five-act form most suitable. When an Italian scholar-poet +turned from criticism to creation, the tragedies he +conscientiously composed obeyed all the rules, and his +dramatic poems were as academic as those of Seneca, +in that they were intended not for production by professional +actors in a regular theater before spectators +who had paid their way in, but only for an occasional +performance by the author himself assisted by a few +of his friends before a little group of cultivated admirers +of antiquity, contemptuous of the real public. These +soulless dramatic poems, devised for declamation by +amateurs before a gathering of dilettants, are now +perceived to be merely literary curiosities, having little +connection with the real drama made for the regular +theater and its myriad-minded body of playgoers.</p> + +<p class="indent">Just as the Italian dramatic poems were imitations +of Seneca, so the French dramatic poems, composed a +little later, were imitations of these Italians, and also +of Seneca, more or less indirectly. They were the imitations +of an imitation, aping the outward form of the +drama, but empty of all genuine dramatic spirit, artificial +in passion and high-flown in rhetoric. And there +are early English attempts at this same sort of academic +tragedy, more imitative still, since we can see in them +the commingled influence of the French and of the +Italians immediately, and also of the remoter Seneca, +whom they revered as the exemplar of true tragedy. +Such a play is 'Gorboduc,' belauded by the scholarly +Sidney—and even on one occasion acted, by main +strength. In all of these imitations, English and +French and Italian, we find the stately chorus abounding +in lofty rhetoric; and we find also, and always, the +division into five acts. But in the folk-theater, which +the scholar-poets scorned, and out of which the living +drama was to be developed, there is no trace of any +division into acts. In the mysteries and the miracle-plays, +and in the chronicle-plays which grew out of +them, there are numberless episodes, each complete +in itself, and never combined artificially into acts. +The composer of any one of these folk-dramas conceived +his story as a continuous narrative shown in +action; and he gave no thought to the number of +divisions, of episodes, of separate scenes, or of acts +that it might seem to have.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">Tragedy has ever been held to be more elevated than +comedy and more worthy; and comedy has continually +accepted the conditions appropriate to tragedy. Since +the dignity of tragedy demanded a division into five +acts, comedy was also subjected to the same rule; and +this was done in spite of the fact that the plays of Plautus +and Terence (composed long before Horace codified +his advice to intending poets) were not divided +into acts, if we may judge by the earliest of the surviving +manuscripts. So it is that we find the scholarly +authors of the two earliest of English comedies, 'Ralph +Roister Doister' and 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' +knowing what was expected of them, and giving the +five-act form to both of these amusing plays. But +these two comedies, almost contemporary as they are +with the academic and undramatic tragedy of 'Gorboduc,' +are far superior to it in adaptability for actual +performance. They are not intended only to be recited; +they can be acted easily and profitably. As +we analyze them we see that the structural complexity +may be derived from the comic dramas of Plautus and +Terence, but that the inner spirit is that of the English +folk-theater, of the robust medieval farce-writers, +of the unknown humorist who has left us the laughable +and veracious scene of Mak and the Shepherds.</p> + +<p class="indent">Scholars as they were, the authors of these two comedies +did not scorn the primitive plays of the plain +people of their own time. They did not despise the +unpretending folk-drama which was then pleasing the +populace; in fact, they took stock of it, and found their +profit in so doing. They saw that to be raised up to +the level of literature it needed only to be chastened +and stiffened. They accepted the living tradition of +play-making as it came down to them, and in accord +with this tradition they wrought their humorous fantasies, +adding the higher polish and the more adroit +plot which they had learned to appreciate in the Latin +comic dramatists. They accepted the native play, +bare as it was, and they enriched it by bestowing on it +as much as it could carry of the finer art of the Romans. +Thus it is that the authors of 'Ralph Roister Doister' +and of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle' may have pointed +out the path of progress to the author of the 'Comedy +of Errors,' whereas the authors of 'Gorboduc,' contemptuously +rejecting the folk-theater of their own day, and +idly copying the classicist imitations of the Italians, +thereby relinquished whatever direct influence they +might have had upon the growth of tragedy in England.</p> + +<p class="indent">Both 'Ralph Roister Doister' and 'Gammer Gurton's +Needle' were probably written for performance +by college boys, and they have not a little of the brisk +heartiness and of the broad horse-play to which we are +accustomed in the college pieces of to-day. It was for +performance at court that Lyly wrote the most of his +plays, which lack the vivacity and the liveliness distinguishing +the two college comic dramas, but which +yet reveal a far better understanding of the drama than +was possessed by the authors of 'Gorboduc.' Lyly +again is careful to divide his plays into five acts. But +his contemporaries Greene and Peele, writing solely +for the professional playhouses, were bound by none +of the rules which might be expected in college or at +court. Whatever their own scholarly equipment, when +they wrote for the professional players, they followed +unhesitatingly the traditions of the contemporary +theater. As playwrights they were the direct heirs of +the anonymous and ignorant devisers of the medieval +drama. They had a story to set on the stage; they +chose a succession of more or less effective episodes, +and they carelessly cast these into dialog, with little +thought of form or of construction. Never do their +plays contain matter enough for five full acts; and we +may be certain that no such framework was ever in +the mind of either of these dramatic poets. In the +original editions of their pieces we find no separation +into acts and scenes; and if this needless and misleading +subdivision is found in later editions it is the doing +of misguided editors.</p> + +<p class="indent">In what is accepted as the earliest edition of Kyd's +'Spanish Tragedy,' the most widely popular of all the +pre-Shaksperian plays, the text is actually divided into +four acts. But this division is not structural; it is +almost accidental, as tho it was an afterthought, inserted +at the last moment into the copy intended for +the printer, and never in the mind of the playwright +himself when he was preparing the prompt-book for +the actors; and Shakspere, who followed Kyd in more +ways than one, apparently followed him in this also. +In the folio edition of his plays, published after his +death, a division into five acts has been made; but the +task has not been accomplished any too skilfully—for +example, the second act of 'King John' has but eighty +lines, and here the division is into four acts only. The +suggestion has been proffered that it was, perhaps, left +to the printers to do, the influence of Ben Jonson +having been powerful enough to establish the theory +that a self-respecting dramatist would never fail to +cast his tragedies in the five-act form. It is to be noted +also that no division into acts is to be found in the +quarto editions published in Shakspere's lifetime; and +this is very significant since these quartos seem to have +been piratical copies from shorthand notes taken surreptitiously +in the theater, thus recording the actual +conditions of performance.</p> + +<p class="indent">It may be doubted whether Shakspere conceived his +plays in accordance with any such subdivisions. +Some of them, the 'Comedy of Errors' for one, which +can be acted in the space of an hour and a quarter, +are far too slight for so huge a framework. On the +other hand, the several appearances of Chorus punctuate +'Henry V' into five divisions, apparently an intentional +conformity to the Horatian rule. Of course, +there were generally several intermissions in the +Elizabethan performance of a play, altho the resulting +divisions were not necessarily five; and it is noteworthy +that Shakspere makes Jaques declare that man's life +had seven acts.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">The fact is that Shakspere was a professional playwright, +and that he had no merely academic theories. +In composing his plays he followed unhesitatingly the +principles that had guided his immediate predecessors. +He was seeking ever to give the playgoing public what +it had been accustomed to enjoy in the theater, better +in degree, no doubt, but the same in kind. Like these +predecessors, he kept to the traditions inherited from +the medieval mysteries; and he thought in terms, not +of acts and of scenes, as a modern playwright is forced +to do, but of a continuous narrative shown in action. +In doing so he resembles Herodotus, whose history has +also been cut up by later editors, dividing it into nine +books, altho, as Professor Bury has reminded us, "such +divisions had not yet come into fashion" in the historian's +own day. There is no reason to suppose that +Shakspere would have approved of the attempt of the +editors of the folio to subdivide his plays, each into +five acts. There is every reason to suppose that he +would have been greatly annoyed if he could have +foreseen the way in which later editors have chosen +further to chop up the acts into an infinity of scenes.</p> + +<p class="indent">Nowadays, we have been so accustomed to read +Shakspere in one or another of the trim and tidy modern +editions, with a wanton division into acts and into +scenes, each of which indicates a change of place, and +each of which seems to suggest a change of scenery, +that it is only by a resolute effort of the will that we +are able to shake off the prepossessions derived from +this unfortunate and confusing presentation of his text. +Probably even to-day a majority of those who enjoy +reading Shakspere would be surprised to be told that +there is no warrant whatever for these alleged changes +of scene, and for these superabundant subdivisions of +his story. Many of these readers would be taken +aback by the unexpected discovery that all this cutting +up of Shakspere's text was the work of his commentators, +with Rowe at the head of the procession. +Some of these readers would feel as tho they were deprived +of a precious possession, if they had only an +edition in which all this useless machinery was swept +away.</p> + +<p class="indent">And yet this is just the edition which is demanded +by the present state of Shaksperian scholarship, and +which is now made possible by our new understanding +of the Elizabethan theater, with its rude platform +thrust out into the yard, so different from our modern +theaters, in which the stage is withdrawn behind a +picture-frame. The Tudor platform-stage is wholly +unlike the picture-frame stage of to-day; but it is very +like the "pageant," or the scaffold on which the mysteries +and miracle-plays were presented. It was to the +simple conditions of his semi-medieval theater that +Shakspere adjusted himself, rude as those conditions +may now appear to us who are accustomed to the sumptuous +picturesqueness of our own luxuriant playhouses.</p> + +<p class="indent">In accepting the theater as he found it, and in availing +himself of all its possibilities, such as they were, +Shakspere showed his usual common sense. Only by +striving to reconstruct for ourselves in our mind's eye, +as it were, the playhouse where he plied his trade and +earned his living, can we come to any adequate appreciation +of his art, of his craftsmanship as a playwright, +of his dramaturgic skill. And in any honest effort to +understand how his mighty dramas were originally +produced by himself and by his fellow actors in the +round O of the wooden Globe Theater, unroofed and +unlighted except by the dingy daylight of northern +Europe, we need always to keep fast in our mind the +fact that all preconceptions are false that may be derived +from our memory of latter-day performances in +theaters of a type which the Elizabethan dramatists +could not foresee, and of which the conditions are often +the exact opposite of those they accepted without hesitation. +That is to say, the most profitable way to reconstruct +mentally the Tudor playhouse is to banish +from our minds every impression made by our modern +theater, with its elaborate complexity, and to study +out for ourselves the simple circumstances of performance +in the Middle Ages. And as a first step toward +the proper standpoint, we must cast out our traditional +belief that Shakspere always accepted the classicist +formula of five acts, proclaimed by Horace, and +employed by Seneca. That he did use it in one or two +plays seems indisputable, and he may very well have +employed it in a few others, but there is no reason to +suppose that he would have submitted himself any more +willingly to the rule of five acts than he did to the rule +of the three unities.</p> + +<p class="indent">It may be doubted also whether not a few dramatists, +writing later than Shakspere, would not have done well +to claim the liberty he and Lope de Vega chose to +exercise at will. Racine, for one, had sadly to stretch +his 'Athalie' to fill out the five-act framework which +he had blindly accepted, altho he had earlier limited +'Esther' to three acts. Schiller, for another, would +have gained a swifter compactness for his play if he +had left out the needless fifth act of his 'William Tell' +and rolled his fourth act into his third. Victor Hugo +had to manufacture a fourth act for his 'Ruy Blas,' so +slightly related to his main story that it was cut out +of the English adaptation acted by Fechter and Booth. +Ibsen, it may be added, composed his first tragedy, +'Catiline,' in three acts, altho it was in blank verse, +thus early revealing his characteristic independence +of tradition.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1907.)</p> + +<p class="indent">P. S.—Since this paper was written I have found two +opinions as to the number of acts a play ought to have +which were unknown to me when I undertook the discussion. +The first is in the 'Dasarupa,' the Hindu +treatise on the craft of play-making: "There are five +stages of the action which is set on foot by those that +strive after a result: Beginning, Effort, Prospect of +Success, Certainty of Success, Attainment of the Result."</p> + +<p class="indent">The second is in the commentary made by Robert +Louis Stevenson during his methodical perusal of the +dramas of the elder Dumas. After reading 'Henri III +et sa Cour,' Stevenson declares that here in Dumas's +first piece "is the cloven foot; a fourth act that has +no part or lot in the play; a fourth act that is a mere +incubus and interruption—that takes the eye off the +action, and between two spirited and palpitating scenes +interjects a damned sermon on the history of France. +Poor Tribonian had a sore job to make up the fifty +books of the Pandects; what was that to the labor of +a dramatist bent on filling his five acts? I go as far +as this: the natural division of the normal play is +four: Act I, exposition; Act II, the problem produced; +Act III, the problem argued; Act IV, the way out of +it."</p> + +<p class="indent">(1916.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">V<br /> +DRAMATIC COLLABORATION<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">DRAMATIC COLLABORATION<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is a significant fact that whenever and wherever the +drama has flourished most abundantly and most luxuriantly, +we are certain to find a tendency to collaboration, +to the partnership of two authors in the composition +of one play. In England in the spacious days +of good Queen Bess, there is not only the famous association +of Beaumont and Fletcher, but also a host of +other more or less temporary combinations, Fletcher +with Shakspere and Massinger, Dekker with Ben Jonson +and with Middleton. In Spain Lope de Vega +joined forces with Montalvan and with others. In +France in the seventeenth century Molière, once at +least called to his aid Corneille and Quinault; and in +France again in the nineteenth century we find Augier +working with Sandeau and with Foussier, Scribe working +with Legouvé, and with a score of others, while +Dumas the elder was encompassed by a cloud of collaborators, +and Dumas the younger was willing on +more than one occasion to join various writers in the +plays which he included in the separate volumes of his +works, called by him the 'Théâtre des Autres.' Then +also in France there was the long-continued alliance of +Meilhac and Halévy, to which we owe 'Froufrou' and +the 'Grand Duchess of Gérolstein'; and there was also +the almost equally interesting association of MM. +Caillavet and de Flers. Sardou had one ally in the +composition of 'Divorçons,' and another in the composition +of 'Madame Sans Gêne.' In Great Britain in +recent years we have seen Sir James Barrie and Sir +Arthur Pinero unite in writing a book for music; Mr. +Bennett and Mr. Knoblauch unite in writing 'Milestones'; +Mr. Granville Barker and Mr. Laurence +Housman unite in writing 'Prunella.' And in the +United States there was a score of years ago the steady +collaboration of Mr. Belasco with the late H. C. De +Mille, to which we owe the 'Charity Ball' and the +'Wife'; and more recently Mr. Belasco also has collaborated +with Mr. John Luther Long in writing +'Madame Butterfly,' and the 'Darling of the Gods.' +Mr. Augustus Thomas was once the partner of Mr. +Clay Greene; Mr. Bronson Howard composed one of +his latest plays, 'Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of New +Amsterdam,' in association with another American +man of letters; and Mr. Booth Tarkington and Mr. +Harry Leon Wilson were the co-authors of the 'Man +from Home' and of half a dozen other pieces.</p> + +<p class="indent">While this prevalence of the practise of collaboration +in periods of dramatic productivity is significant, it is +equally significant that there is no corresponding prevalence +of the practise of collaboration in novel-writing. +True it is that there are certain fairly well-known +partnerships in the history of prose fiction—that of +Erckmann-Chatrain, in French, for instance, and that +of Besant and Rice in English. True it is that Dickens +and Wilkie Collins were joint authors of 'No Thorofare,' +and that Mark Twain and Charles Dudley +Warner were joint authors of the 'Gilded Age.' True +it is also, that novels have been written not only by +two partners, but by what can fairly be described as a +syndicate of associated authors, the 'King's Men' by +four, 'Six of One and Half a Dozen of the Other' by +six, and the 'Whole Family' by twelve (including Mr. +Howells and Mr. Henry James, Mrs. Mary E. Wilkins +Freeman, and Doctor Henry van Dyke). These freakish +conglomerates are sporadic only; they seem to be +little better than literary "stunts"; and even the union +of two writers in the production of a single novel is +far less frequently to be observed than the union of +two writers in the production of a single play. The +former is unusual, whereas the latter seems to be so +common as to excite no comment.</p> + +<p class="indent">Now, there must be a reason for this difference. If +the playwrights find it advantageous to double up, +and the novelists do not discover any profit in putting +on double harness, there ought to be some evident explanation. +When we consider more carefully the essentially +different conditions of the art of prose fiction +and the art of play-writing, it is not difficult to perceive +fairly obvious reasons for the varying procedure of the +practitioners of these rival arts, which may seem so +much alike, but which are really so very different in +their methods and in their possibilities.</p> + +<p class="indent">The French critic Joubert once asserted that "to +make in advance an exact and detailed plan is to deprive +one's intellect of all the pleasures of novelty and +chance meeting during its execution; it is to make this +execution insipid, and in consequence impossible, in +works calling for enthusiasm and imagination." This +is an overstatement—but it is not a misstatement—of +a principle of composition which is fundamentally +sound in the writing of prose fiction, but which is +fundamentally unsound in the writing of plays. The +drama demands a well-built story, artfully put together, +while a novel need not have a coherent and compact +plot. Some great novels, Fielding's 'Tom Jones' for +one, and Turgenef's 'Smoke' for another, have each +of them a beautifully articulated structure, and so has +Mr. Howells's 'Rise of Silas Lapham,' to take a later +example. But other great novels are frankly more or +less haphazard in their movement, the 'Pickwick +Papers,' for instance, and 'Tartarin on the Alps,' and +'Huckleberry Finn.' And it is not too much to say +that only a very few novels attain to the severity of +structure, the regularity of action, the straightforward, +unswerving movement which we discover in the dramas +of a corresponding rank, and which can be achieved +only by making in advance the exact and detailed plan +that Joubert held to be fatal in works calling for enthusiasm +and imagination.</p> + +<p class="indent">Of course, the drama can utilize enthusiasm and +imagination quite as often and quite as abundantly +as can prose fiction, but it must use these precious +gifts with a discretion which is not imposed upon its +rival. In a novel enthusiastic imagination may lure +the story-teller into a host of by-paths not foreseen by +him when he set out on his journey; and while he is +adventuring himself in these by-paths, he may chance +to encounter characters of a diverting or an appealing +personality, whom it may amuse him to delineate, and +whom the readers of his book will be glad to welcome. +But in a drama the story-teller is debarred from these +wanderings from the straight and narrow road, and he +must, perforce, control his enthusiastic imagination, +compelling it to do its work within the rigid limits of +the artfully devised framework of the plot.</p> + +<p class="indent">In other words, character is all-important in prose +fiction, and the ultimate fame of the novelist depends +upon his power of endowing his creatures with life, and +upon his ability to let them obey the laws of their +being before our eyes. This must the playwright also +achieve; but he has the added duty of relating his +characters intimately to the main action of his drama. +Now, the novelist is under no obligation of this sort; +he appeals not to a crowd seated before a stage, but to +the solitary reader in the study; and experience shows +that solitary readers do not insist upon the solidity +of structure in a novel which the same individuals +desire and demand when they betake themselves to the +theater. The novel-reader may be satisfied by characters +who do not know their own minds, and who are +merely exhibited and put through their paces, without +having any vital relation to the story, even if there is +anything which can fairly be called a story—and in +some novels of high repute, in Sterne's 'Sentimental +Journey,' for example, and in Anatole France's 'Histoire +Contemporaine,' each of them extending over +several volumes, there is little or no story, no main +thread, no pretense of a plot.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">Here, then, is the fatal difference between a novel +and a play; a novel may have a plot, but a plot is not +necessary, and it can get along with a minimum of +story; whereas a play must have a plot, skilfully articulated, +even if the skeleton is beautifully covered; it +must have a story peopled by persons knowing their +own minds, a story set in action by a dominating will, +which determines the successive episodes of the action. +As the making of a plot, as the putting together of +a supporting skeleton of action, calls for dexterity of +workmanship, for ingenuity of resource, for adroitness +of construction, for the most careful consideration +of the means whereby the end is to be obtained, two +heads are often better than one, because the partners +have to talk the thing out to its uttermost details before +they decide upon the straight line which is the +shortest distance between two points. The technic +of play-making is more exacting than the technic of +novel-writing, and it requires imperatively the exact +and detailed plan which Joubert held to be hampering +to enthusiasm and imagination. Scott, for example, +as he tells us himself, began more than one of his novels +not knowing what he was going to put into it, and not +knowing from day to day, as he was writing, what his +ultimate goal would be. But no playwright, however +happy-go-lucky in his tendencies, has ever dared to +begin a play before he knew with absolute certainty +how he intended to end it. In the drama we insist +upon a straightforward and unswerving action; the +end is implied in the beginning, and the beginning is +only what that end makes necessary.</p> + +<p class="indent">As the technic of the drama is exacting, it needs to +be acquired by a period of apprenticeship; and here is +another of the indisputable advantages of collaboration. +The more inexperienced of the two collaborators +is taken into the studio, so to speak, of the more expert, +and he thereby learns the secrets of stage-craft in the +best possible way, by applying them under the direction, +or at the suggestion and by the advice, of an older +practitioner, to whom they have become so familiar +that they are a second nature, as it were.</p> + +<p class="indent">Collaboration is the best conceivable school for young +playwrights. It is impossible to overestimate the influence +of Scribe's multiplied collaborations upon the +drama of France in the mid-years of the nineteenth +century; and almost as potent, because almost as wide-spread, +was the influence of the many collaborations +of the elder Dumas. Most of those who were the temporary +partners of Scribe and Dumas were subdued to +their more powerful associate, and contributed little +or nothing beyond their fundamental suggestions for +the several plays, and their incidental suggestions as +to details of the working-out. That is to say, most of +the plays signed by Scribe and Dumas in partnership +with others have a close similarity to the plays they +signed alone. But from this generalization we may +except 'Adrienne Lecouvreur' and 'Bataille de Dames,' +in which Scribe had Legouvé for a partner, and in which +we find a greater richness of character delineation than +in any of the pieces that Scribe composed alone, as we +find also a greater dexterity of construction than in +any of the pieces that Legouvé composed alone.</p> + +<p class="indent">To the fact that 'Milestones' was written by Mr. +Arnold Bennett and Mr. Edward Knoblauch in conjunction, +and to the friendly discussion due to their +working together, we may credit the superior stage-effectiveness +of this play over the 'Kismet,' which Mr. +Knoblauch wrote alone, and over the 'Great Adventure,' +for which Mr. Bennett was solely responsible. +To the composition of 'Milestones' each of these two +authors, the American and the Englishman, brought +his special qualifications, each of them not only stimulating +but supplementing the other. So we find the +most famous French comedy of the nineteenth century, +the 'Gendre de M. Poirier,' a better piece of work, +more equably balanced than any play written alone by +either Augier or Sandeau.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is scarcely necessary to say that there is little +profit in a partnership for play-making when both of +the associates are equally inexpert, or when they were +both possessed of wrong notions about the art of the +drama. In the former case we have the blind leading +the blind, and the most lamentable example of this is +the long forgotten 'Ah Sin,' which Bret Harte and +Mark Twain combined to compose that C. T. Parsloe +could impersonate the Heathen Chinee. In the +latter case we have not only the blind leading the +blind, but a perverseness in going the wrong way, intensified +by the complete sympathy between the two +associates; and the most lamentable example of this +is the 'Deacon Brodie' of Robert Louis Stevenson and +William Ernest Henley, who not only were ignorant of +the modern technic of the drama, but who ignored it +of set purpose, deliberately going up a blind alley despite +the plain sign that there was no thorofare.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet Stevenson, at least, perceived clearly enough +what ought to be the more evident advantages of collaboration, +that it focused "two minds together on the +stuff," thus producing "an extraordinarily greater richness +of purview, consideration, and invention." Collaboration +will probably always produce a greater +richness of invention, since each of the partners is +likely to stimulate the other, their two minds striking +sparks like flint and steel. But it can produce a greater +richness of consideration only when each is willing both +to yield and to oppose. Neither must yield too easily; +each of them must stand out for his own suggestions; +and each of them must insist on weighing and measuring +the suggestions of his ally. If they are too sympathetic, +if their two hearts beat as one, then the advantage +of their having two heads is diminished. If the +two partners always think alike, then there will be no +greater richness of purview.</p> + +<p class="indent">When a play composed by two of his friends failed +to find the success on the stage which had been anticipated +for it, Mr. Augustus Thomas made the shrewd +remark that the two authors had probably been "too +polite to each other"—that is to say, that they had not +insisted upon criticising the successive suggestions +made by each in turn. On the other hand, the collaborators +must be broad-minded enough not to resent +this necessary criticism. Like any other partnership, +collaboration is a ticklish experiment, and it can be +profitable only when the two partners are willing to +give and take. They need more than usual self-control; +they must be able, each of them, to preserve his own +self-respect while full of regard for the self-respect of +the other. It is not surprising that the long collaborations +of Erckmann-Chatrain and of Meilhac and Halévy +finally came to a sudden end because of an abrupt +quarrel. That disagreement is likely to arise out of +the discussions inherent in any profitable literary partnership +is evidenced by a retort credited to the younger +Dumas, who was a rather authoritative partner, and +who did not always succeed in keeping on good terms +with those whose plays he had bettered. A friend once +suggested a theme for a play, and invited the collaboration +of Dumas. "But why should I wish to quarrel +with you?" was answer of the witty dramatist.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps the most remarkable instance of self-control +in all the long history of collaboration is that of Théodore +Barrière, the author of the once-famous play called +the 'Marble Heart,' one of the latest of whose pieces +(adapted by Augustin Daly as 'Alixe') was composed +in collaboration with his mother-in-law!</p> + +<p class="indent">Sometimes the breach between the two partners is +postponed until after the play is completed and produced. +Charles Reade and Tom Taylor joined forces +in the composition of the long-popular comedy called +'Masks and Faces,' and after it had established itself +upon the stage, Charles Reade took its plot and its +characters and utilized them in his charming novel, +'Peg Woffington,' and as he had taken the liberty of +thus making a private profit out of the property of the +partnership, it is not to be wondered at that Tom Taylor +was distinctly displeased. But Charles Reade, altho +he collaborated with Tom Taylor, with Paul Merritt, +and with Dion Boucicault, was more or less deficient +in the courtesy and consideration that a man ought +to possess to fit him for partnership. When he allied +himself with Dion Boucicault in the writing of the +novel of 'Foul Play,' the collaborators quarreled so +violently that they felt themselves justified in preparing +rival dramatizations of the story they had written +in conjunction, so that London playgoers had the opportunity +of choosing between two different theatrical +adaptations of the same tale.</p> + +<p class="indent">When the two partners are courteous to each other +but not too yielding, when they are sympathetic but +not too much alike in their characteristics and qualifications, +when each of them supplements the weaker +points of the other, then collaboration ought to result +in plays of more variety of invention, and of more ingenuity +of construction than is likely to be possessed +by the average play due to a single mind. This much +must be admitted; and it is the final justification for +collaboration. But altho these partnerships in play-making +spread abroad a knowledge of the principles +of the art, and altho they raise the probable value of +the average play, it must be admitted also, and with +equal frankness, that the possibilities of collaboration +are sharply limited.</p> + +<p class="indent">No single one of the mightiest masterpieces of dramatic +literature, ancient and modern, is to be credited +to collaboration; and the only possible exception to +this sweeping statement would be urged by the critics +who hold that the 'Gendre de M. Poirier' of Augier +and Sandeau is the masterpiece of French comedy in +the nineteenth century. Those who have climbed to +the loftiest height of dramatic art have always done +so alone, sustained by enthusiasm and supported by +imagination. In spite of the greater "richness of +purview, consideration, and invention" that collaboration +undoubtedly bestows, the man of surpassing genius, +the great master of the drama, Sophocles or Shakspere +or Molière, works best alone. It is true that he may +now and again take to himself an ally, as Shakspere +condescended to the assistance of Fletcher in 'Henry +VIII,' and as Molière invoked the aid of Corneille in +'Psyché,' but it is true also that these plays, written +in collaboration by Shakspere and by Molière, are not +the plays which establish and confirm their fame. +Indeed, these plays are not even among the more important +pieces of Shakspere and Molière, and the reputation +of the authors would be no lower if these +plays had never come into existence.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is by the comedies and tragedies which Shakspere +wrote alone that the Elizabethan stage is made glorious, +and not by the dramatic romances that go under +the joint names of Beaumont and Fletcher. It is by +the lyrical melodramas of which Victor Hugo was sole +author that we recall the Romanticist revolt in the +French theater in 1830, and immediately thereafter, +and not by the perfervidly passionate pieces that the +elder Dumas put together in partnership with a group +of now-forgotten auxiliaries. It is by the comedies +that Augier and the younger Dumas wrote, each of them +expressing himself in his own fashion, that the drama +of France is illumined a score or more years later, and +not by the comedies in the composition of which Scribe +had the aid of an army of allies.</p> + +<p class="indent">In any period of abundant fertility we can observe +growing together at the same time from the soil, a +fairly large number of trees rising above the underbrush, +and we can also perceive here and there a tree +of conspicuous eminence towering above these clumps +of average height. In the luxuriant forest of the +drama many of the trees of average height may be +ticketed with two names, but the monarchs of the +wood, those whose tops lift themselves high above +their neighbors—these will be found to bear only single +signature.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1914.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">VI<br /> +THE DRAMATIZATION OF NOVELS AND<br /> +THE NOVELIZATION OF PLAYS<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2"> +THE DRAMATIZATION OF NOVELS<br /> +AND THE NOVELIZATION OF PLAYS<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> Professor Bliss Perry's admirably suggestive 'Study +of Prose Fiction,' he devotes one chapter to a careful +consideration of the essential distinctions between +prose fiction and the drama, in which he makes it +plain that "the novel and the play are not merely two +different modes of communicating the same fact or +truth," because "the different modes of presentation +really result in the communication of a different fact." +Professor Perry declares that the field of the dramatist +is marked off from that of the novelist "by the nature +of the artistic medium which each man employs," and +he asserts that the choice of a medium for presenting +his story and projecting his characters "depends wholly +upon the personality and training of the artist and the +nature of the fact or truth that he wishes to convey to +the public". And he sums up by insisting that "a +novel is typically as far removed from a play as a bird +is from a fish, and that any attempt to transform one +into the other is apt to result in a sort of flying-fish, a +betwixt-and-between thing—capable, indeed, of both +swimming and flying, but good at neither." In other +words, a dramatized novel or a novelized play is an +attempt to breed an amphibious creature which, as the +Irishman once defined it, "can't live on the land, and +dies in the water."</p> + +<p class="indent">The difference between the novel and the play is +due to the inexorable fact that one is intended to be +read alone in the study, and that the other is intended +to be seen on the stage by a crowd; it ought to be obvious +to all who care to consider the question, and yet +there are many who fail to grasp the distinction, deceived +by the illusive but superficial similarities between +the two forms, each of which contains a story +carried on by characters who take part in dialogs. +And as a result of this failure to apprehend the vital +differences between the two types of story-telling, the +narrative to be perused and the action to be witnessed, +our theaters have long been invaded by dramatized +novels, and our book-stores are now being besieged +by novelized plays. In many cases, if not in most of +them, the motive for the transformation is simply +commercial; and in view of the immediate gain to be +garnered, the artistic disadvantages of the procedure +are overlooked. If hundreds of thousands of readers +have found pleasure in following the footsteps of a +fascinating heroine thru the pages of a prose fiction, it +is possible always that hundreds of thousands of spectators +may be lured to behold her adventures when +they are set forth anew in a stage-play. And if a compelling +plot has drawn audiences night after night into +the theater, it is possible again that this plot may attract +book-buyers in equal numbers when it is retold +in a narrative for the benefit of those remote from the +playhouse, or reluctant to risk themselves within its +portals. Managers are ready to tempt the novelist +with the hope of a second crop of fame and fortune, +and publishers dangle the same golden bait before the +eyes of the dramatist.</p> + +<p class="indent">Altho this effort to kill two birds with one stone is +more frequent of late than it used to be, it is not at all +new—indeed it existed before the rise of prose fiction. +The dramatic poets of Greece borrowed episodes from +the earliest epic poets. Centuries later Shakspere laid +violent hands on Italian tales and on English romances. +On the other hand, while it must be admitted that the +dramatizing of novels has been far more prevalent in +the past than the novelizing of plays, this latter practise, +suddenly popular in the twentieth century, was +not unknown in the centuries that preceded ours. For +example, Le Sage levied upon the Spanish playwrights +for many of the characters and the situations he needed, +for his rambling, picaresque novels, 'Gil Blas' and its +sister stories. Another illustration can be found in +England earlier than any in France; and before the +play of 'Pericles,' which Shakspere seems to have +edited and improved, was printed and perhaps even +before it was performed, it was novelized by an obscure +writer named Wilkins, who was very probably the author +of the original version of the straggling piece that +Shakspere revised. Thru the long years prose fiction +and the drama have struggled with each other for the +favor of the public, and each of them has always been +willing to borrow from its rival whenever it found +material fitted for its own special purpose.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">But altho the dramatizing of novels was less uncommon +a century or two ago than the novelizing of plays, +neither was frequent and neither of them was in any +way prohibited by law. That is to say, the novel and +the play were held to be so different that the novelist +could not prevent the dramatist from borrowing his +stories, and the playwright could not forbid the writer +of prose fiction from taking over his plots. Even the +dramatizing of novels was so uncommon that the earlier +story-tellers were not moved to protest when they saw +their fictions employed by the playwrights; in fact, +they were often inclined to accept this as a compliment +to their original invention. Marmontel, for instance, +in the preface to a late edition of his 'Moral Tales,' +pointed with pride to the fact that one of these prose +narratives had been turned into a play, and suggested +complacently that there were other stories in his collection +worthy of the same fate. Tennyson borrowed +the story of his 'Dora' from Miss Mitford; and +Charles Reade had no scruple in making a play out +of Tennyson's poem. It must be admitted that Reade's +attitude was rather inconsistent, for he writhed in pain +when one of his own novels was cut into dialog and +put on the stage without his permission, and yet he +himself made plays out of novels by Anthony Trollope +and by Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett without asking +their leave, and without heed to their subsequent protests +against his high-handed proceeding. Apparently, +when he was the aggressor he thought that he was +doing a service to his victims.</p> + +<p class="indent">When Reade was guilty of this offense against the +developing literary morals of the nineteenth century, +he was probably within his legal rights, since the British +law had not then advanced to the point of recognizing +the author's complete ownership of the fiction +he had created. This defect has been remedied at +last, and in the existing copyright and stage-right legislation +of Great Britain and the United States authors +are assumed to reserve to themselves every privilege +which they do not specifically deprive themselves of; +and they need no longer announce that they desire to +retain all rights for their own profit. Both in the British +code and in the American the novelist has now the sole +privilege of making a play out of his story, and the +dramatist has the sole privilege of making a novel out +of his play. <i>Dramatization</i> is a word of respectable +antiquity, and the corresponding word, <i>novelization</i>, +has now been legally recognized as a distinctive term. +The authors had felt a wrong when others could legally +make money out of a plot they had invented; and they +asserted a moral right to control their own works whatever +might be the form of presentation. The progress +of legal reform was slow, as it usually is, but it was also +certain. The moral right has now become a legal right +of which the original author may avail himself or not, +as he pleases. He may, if he chooses, dramatize his +own novel and novelize his own play; or, if he prefers, +he can sell the permission to rehandle his material to +a professional playwright or to a professional storyteller.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">There is one peculiar distinction between the novel +and the play which Professor Bliss Perry did not emphasize. +A novel may please long, and please many +when it is only a study of character, like the 'Crime of +Sylvestre Bonnard' of M. Anatole France, or when it is +only the record of a series of adventures and misadventures +passing before the eyes of the chief personage, +like the 'Huckleberry Finn' of Mark Twain. A play, +on the other hand, is likely to fail to please audiences +in the theater unless it sets before the spectators a +clearly defined struggle, a conflict of desires, a stark +assertion of the human will. That is to say, the drama +must deal with a struggle, and the novel need not. +The drama must be dynamic and the novel may be +static—if these scientific terms may be employed without +pedantry. Therefore, while any play may be +novelized, with more or less chance of pleasing its new +public, if the task is skilfully accomplished, only those +novels can be successfully dramatized which happen +to present an essential struggle and to display the collision +of contending volitions. Any dramatization of +the 'Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard' or of 'Huckleberry +Finn,' of 'Gil Blas' or of the 'Pickwick Papers,' is foredoomed +to failure, for these prose fictions do not contain +the stuff out of which a vital play could be made. +But 'Jane Eyre,' for example, and the 'Tale of Two +Cities,' and 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' do possess this necessary +dramatic element, and they can be made into plays +with a prospect of pleasing audiences in the theater.</p> + +<p class="indent">Even when the novel chances to have the essential +struggle which the drama demands, the task of adapting +it to the stage is not so easy as the non-expert supposes. +At first sight it may seem as if there ought to +be very little difficulty in turning a novel into a play. +There is a story ready-made, situations in abundance, +and characters endowed with the breath of life. Yet +as a matter of fact, it is harder to make a play out of +a novel than it is to write an original play. The +immediate danger before the theatrical adapter is that +he may be tempted to serve up the story merely as a +panorama of successive episodes instead of casting out +resolutely everything, however good in itself, which +does not bear directly upon the fundamental conflict. +This is one reason why the novelist had better leave +the work of dramatization to an experienced playwright, +who will ruthlessly omit many an episode that +the story-teller could not bring himself to discard. In +fact, it is hard even for the expert adapter to disentangle +the special situations of a novel which alone are +available in a play, and he is often tempted to retain +much that he had better leave out.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps it is not too daring a paradox to suggest +that a prose fiction is most likely to be made into a +good play when the playwright has not read the book +he is dramatizing, but has only been told the story, so +that he is free to handle the situations afresh in accord +with the conditions of dramatic art, and free to discard +the special developments chosen by the novelist in +accord with the very different conditions of narrative +art. The best version of Mrs. Henry Wood's 'East +Lynne' is the French play, 'Miss Multon,' by Adolphe +Belot and Eugène Nus; and neither of the French collaborators +knew any more about the English novel +than its bare story, which was told to one of them by a +French actress, who could read English. Now and +again a clever playwright, even when he has the disadvantage +of complete familiarity with the novel, can +break loose from it and yet preserve its full flavor; and +this is what Mr. George M. Cohan was able to do in +the play wherein he presented the leading characters +of Mr. George Randolph Chester's 'Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford' +in a set of situations very different from +those in the original story.</p> + +<p class="indent">Thus we see that only a few novels are really fit to +be dramatized, and that even these are often dramatized +ineffectively because the playwright has followed +the story-teller too closely instead of putting the plot +back into solution, so to speak, and letting it recrystallize +in dramatic form. The novelizer has a larger +liberty since every play contains a story and characters +capable of being transferred to prose fiction. But his +task has its equivalent danger, and the writer of the +narrative may be content merely to tread in the footsteps +of the dramatist, and to do no more than write +out more amply the dialog and the stage business, +instead of reconceiving the plot afresh to tell it more +in accord with the divergent principles of the art of +prose fiction. The limitations of time to "the two +hours' traffic of the stage" compel the dramatist to +extreme compression; his dialogs must be far compacter +and more pregnant than is becoming in the more +leisurely novel, where the author can take all the time +there is. Moreover, the playwright often does no +more than allude to episodes which it would profit the +novelist to present in detail to his readers; and the +adroit novelizer will be quick to seize upon hints of +this sort to amplify into chapters containing interesting +material for which the original play supplied only the +most summary suggestion.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">The novelizing of plays is frequent and profitable in +America in these early years of the twentieth century; +and it had been attempted infrequently even in the +seventeenth century. Yet only one of these novelized +plays has succeeded in winning an honorable place for +itself in prose fiction. This is the charming tale of +theatrical life in the eighteenth century, 'Peg Woffington,' +which Charles Reade made out of the comedy +of 'Masks and Faces,' written by him in collaboration +with Tom Taylor. Reade took the liberty of novelizing +this comedy without asking Taylor's permission, +and even without consulting his collaborator; and all +the comment that need be made is that the procedure +was truly characteristic of Reade's lordly attitude toward +others—an attitude taken by him on many other +occasions. But whatever injustice he did to his fellow +worker, he did none to the joint product of their invention; +he transmuted a play into a novel with due +appreciation of the demands of the other art, and he +produced a fascinating tale with a fascinating heroine, +which has been read by thousands who have had no +suspicion that Peg Woffington had originally figured in +a comedy.</p> + +<p class="indent">Charles Reade was able to accomplish this feat because +he was more skilful as a novelist than as a dramatist, +altho he fancied himself rather as a maker of +plays than as a writer of stories. More than once did +he attempt to repeat this early success in winning two +prizes with the same horse. He took the 'Pauvres de +Paris' of Brisebarre and Nus—the same play which +Dion Boucicault had adapted as the 'Streets of New +York'—and made a version which he called 'Gold,' +under which name it had a few performances. He had +materially modified the French plot in his English play; +and he got still further away from Brisebarre and Nus, +when he novelized 'Gold,' and called it 'Hard Cash,' +a matter-of-fact romance. Later he dramatized this +novel of his, and the resulting play did not bear any +close resemblance to the 'Pauvres de Paris.'</p> + +<p class="indent">Reade also collaborated a few years later with Henry +Pettitt in a piece called 'Singleheart and Doubleface,' +which he promptly proceeded to novelize—again +without consulting his partner. For this indelicacy, +swift vengeance followed, as the British novel, being +then unprotected by copyright in the United States, +was immediately dramatized by Messrs. George H. +Jessop and William Gill. It may be noted here casually +that another of Reade's romances, 'White Lies,' afterward +dramatized by him, had been originally novelized +from a French play called the 'Château de Grantier,' +written by Auguste Maquet (the ally of Dumas in the +'Three Guardsmen' and 'Monte Cristo'). It is not a +little surprising that a man like Reade, who prided +himself on his originality, and who even went so far +as to accuse George Eliot of stealing his thunder, should +have been willing to call so frequently on the aid of collaborators, +and to derive so much of his material from +foreign sources.</p> + +<p class="indent">The only other author who has ventured to turn a +play into a novel, and then back into a play varying +widely from the original piece, is Sir James Barrie, and +what he did was not quite what Reade had done. Sir +James wrote a charming story, called the 'Little White +Bird,' and he found in his own prose fiction part of the +material out of which he was moved later to make a +charming play, called 'Peter Pan.' For reasons best +known to himself, but deplored by all who are interested +in the progress of the English drama, Sir James +Barrie has chosen to publish only a few of his comedies. +Yet he met the demands of a multitude of readers by +borrowing from his fantastic piece a part of the material +which he made into a delightful tale, called 'Peter Pan +in Kensington Gardens.' These successive rehandlings +of an idea, first in prose fiction, then in dramatic form, +and finally again in prose fiction, were possible only +to a novelist who was also a dramatist—to an author +who had mastered the secrets of two different methods +of story-telling, the method of the theater and the +method of the library.</p> + +<p class="h2">V</p> + +<p class="indent">The novelist-dramatist of this type is a comparatively +new figure in literature. Formerly there was a sharp +line of cleavage between the man who wrote novels and +the man who wrote plays, altho one or the other might +be lured on occasion into a sporadic raid into the territory +of the other. During three-quarters of the nineteenth +century prose fiction reigned supreme in every +modern literature except that of France, and the novelists +were rather inclined to look down on the playwrights, +and to dismiss the drama as an inferior form, +likely to be absolutely superseded by prose fiction. +But toward the end of the century there began to be +visible signs of an awakening interest in the drama, and +also of a slackening interest in prose fiction. The +novelists of the twentieth century, so far from holding +the drama to be an inferior form, are discovering that +it is at least a more difficult form, and therefore artistically +more attractive. As a result of this discovery not +a few novelists have turned playwrights, taking the +pains to learn the principles of the more dangerous +art of play-making. Sir James Barrie in England, M. +Paul Hervieu in France, Herr Sudermann in Germany, +and Signor d'Annunzio in Italy may not have abandoned +altogether the prose fiction in which they first +won fame, but at least they now devote the major part +of their energies to the drama. It may be recalled +that Clyde Fitch began his literary career as a writer +of short stories, and that Mr. Bernard Shaw originally +emerged to view as the author of a novel.</p> + +<p class="indent">On the other hand, it must be noted as significant +that the playwrights are not tempted to turn novelists; +they seem to be satisfied with their own art as the more +exacting, and therefore the more interesting. M. Rostand +and M. Maeterlinck, Sir Arthur Pinero and Mr. +Henry Arthur Jones, Mr. William Gillette and Mr. +Augustus Thomas have not been lured from the drama +into prose fiction. The novel is a loose form which +makes only lax demands on its practitioners, and which +does not require an artist always to do his best. The +play has a severe technic, and it tolerates no carelessness +of construction. The more gifted a story-teller +may be, and the more artistic, the more probable it is +that in the immediate future he will seek to express +himself in the drama, even if he is also moved now and +again to return to the easier path of prose fiction.</p> + +<p class="indent">And this raises another interesting point. Now that +the drama is rising again into rivalry with prose +fiction, is not the playwright who allows his piece to +be novelized a traitor to his cause? Is he not, in fact, +confessing that he esteems the play inferior to the +novel? Apparently this is the attitude taken by the +more prominent dramatists of the day; most of them +publish their plays to be read, and few of them allow +these plays to be novelized—altho they might find a +superior profit if they descended to this. It is an unfortunate +fact that the public which is eager to read +prose fiction is not so eager to read the drama. In the +dearth of dramatic literature in our language during +the nineteenth century, the public lost the habit of +reading plays, a habit possessed by the public of the +eighteenth century before the vogue of the novel had +been established in consequence of the overwhelming +popularity of Scott, followed speedily by that of +Dickens and Thackeray.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet there are signs that the general reader is slowly +recovering the ability to find pleasure in the perusal +of a play. The social dramas of Ibsen have, most of +them, been performed here and there in the theaters +of Great Britain and the United States; but they have +been read by thousands who have had no opportunity +to see them on the stage. So it is with the plays of +Mr. Bernard Shaw, most of which have also appeared +in our playhouses. So it is with the plays of M. +Maeterlinck, only a few of which have been produced in +the American theater. In time, it seems highly probable +that the reading public will extend as glad a welcome +to a play by Mr. Galsworthy or by Mr. Booth Tarkington +as to one of their novels. But this happy +state can be brought about only if the dramatists resolutely +refrain from novelizing their plays themselves, +and from authorizing novelization by others.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1913.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">VII<br />WOMEN DRAMATISTS<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">WOMEN DRAMATISTS<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">To</span> some of the more ardent advocates of the theory +that women are capable of rivaling men in every one +of the arts it is a little surprising, not to say disconcerting, +that there are so few female playwrights. The +drama is closely akin to the novel, since it is another +form of story-telling; and in the telling of stories women +have been abundantly productive from a time whereof +the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. And +as performers on the stage women have achieved indisputable +eminence; in fact, acting is probably the +earliest of the arts (as possibly it is still the only one) +in which women have won their way to the very front +rank; and in the nineteenth century there were two +tragic actresses, Mrs. Siddons and Rachel, certainly +not inferior in power and in elevation to the most distinguished +of tragic actors. Why is it, then, that +women story-tellers have not thrust themselves thru +the open stage door to become more effective competitors +of the men playwrights?</p> + +<p class="indent">Before considering this question, it may be well to +record that women playwrights have appeared sporadically +both in French literature and in English. In +France Madeleine Béjart, whose sister Molière married, +was credited with the authorship of more than one +play; and in the last hundred years George Sand and +Mme. de Girardin brought out comedies and dramas, +several of which succeeded in establishing themselves +in the repertory of the Comédie-Française. In England +at one time or another plays of an immediate +popularity were produced by Mrs. Aphra Behn, Mrs. +Centlivre, and Mrs. Inchbald; and in America Mrs. +Bateman's 'Self,' and Mrs. Mowatt's 'Fashion' held +the stage for several seasons, while few of recent successes +in the New York theaters had a more delightful +freshness or a more alluring fantasy than Mrs. Gates's +'Poor Little Rich Girl,' and few of them have dealt +more boldly with a burning question than Miss Ford's +'Polygamy.' These examples of woman's competence +to compose plays with vitality enough to withstand the +ordeal by fire before the footlights are evidence that +if there exists any prejudice against the female dramatist +it can be overcome. They are evidence, also, that +women are not debarred from the competition; and +fairness requires the record here that, when Mr. Winthrop +Ames proffered a prize for an American play, +this was awarded to a woman.</p> + +<p class="indent">But to grant equality of opportunity is not to confer +equality of ability, and when we call the roll of the +dramatists who have given luster to French literature +and to English, we discover that this list is not enriched +by the name of any woman. The fame of +George Sand is not derived from her contributions to +dramatic literature, and the contributions of Mrs. +Behn, Mrs. Centlivre, and Mrs. Inchbald, of Mrs. +Bateman and Mrs. Mowatt, entitle them to take rank +only among the minor playwrights of their own generations; +and to say this is to say that their plays are +now familiar only to devoted specialists in the annals +of the stage, and that the general reader could not give +the name of a single piece from the pen of any one of +these enterprising ladies. In other words, the female +playwrights are so few and so unimportant that a conscientious +historian of either French or English dramatic +literature might almost neglect them altogether +without seriously invalidating his survey. Perhaps the +only English titles that are more than mere items in +a barren catalog are Mrs. Centlivre's 'Wonder' and +Mrs. Cowley's 'Belle's Stratagem'; and the French +pieces of female authorship which might protest against +exclusion are almost as few—Mme. de Girardin's 'La +Joie fait Peur,' and George Sand's 'Marquis de Villemer' +and 'Mariage de Victorine.'</p> + +<p class="indent">Indeed, the women playwrights of the past and of +the present might be two or three times more numerous +than they are, and two or three times more important +without even treading upon the heels of the male play-makers. +This is an incontrovertible fact; yet it is +equally indisputable that as performers in the theater +women are competitors whom men respect and with +whom they have to reckon, and that as story-tellers +women are as popular and as prolific as men. And here +we are brought back again to the question with which +this inquiry began: Why is it then that women have +not been as popular and as prolific in telling stories on +the stage? Why cannot they write a play as well as +they can act in it?</p> + +<p class="indent">One answer to this question has been volunteered +by a woman who succeeded as an actress, and who did +not altogether fail as a dramatic poetess, altho she +came in later life to have little esteem for her earlier +attempts at play-writing. It is in her 'Records of a +Girlhood' that Fanny Kemble expressed the conviction +that it was absolutely impossible for a woman ever to +be a great dramatist, because "her physical organization" +was against it. "After all, it is great nonsense +saying that intellect is of no sex. The brain is, of +course, of the same sex as the rest of the creature; +beside the original female nature, the whole of our +training and education, our inevitable ignorance of +common life and general human nature, and the various +experiences of existence from which we are debarred +with the most sedulous care, is insuperably against it"—that +is, against the possibility of a really searching +tragedy, or of a really liberal comedy ever being composed +by a woman. To this rather sweeping denial of +the dramaturgic gift to women Fanny Kemble added +an apt suggestion, that "perhaps some of the manly, +wicked queens, Semiramis, Cleopatra, could have +written plays—but they lived their tragedies instead +of writing of them."</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">At first sight it may seem as if one of Fanny Kemble's +assertions—that no woman can be a dramatist because +of her inevitable ignorance of life and of the experiences +of existence from which she is debarred—is disproved +by the undeniable triumphs of women in acting, +and by the indisputable victories won by women in +the field of prose fiction, achieved in spite of these admitted +limitations. But on a more careful consideration +it will appear that as an actress woman is called +upon only to embody and to interpret characters conceived +by man with the aid of his wider and deeper +knowledge of life. And when we analyze the most +renowned of the novels by which women have attained +fame, we discover that the best of these deal exclusively +with the narrower regions of conduct, and with +the more restricted areas of life with which she is most +familiar as a woman, and that when she seeks to go +outside her incomplete experience of existence she soon +makes us aware of the gaps in her equipment.</p> + +<p class="indent">One of the strongest stories ever written by a woman +is the 'Jane Eyre' of Charlotte Brontë; and the inexperience +of the forlorn and lonely spinster is almost +ludicrously made manifest in her portrayal of Rochester, +a superbly projected figure, not sustained by intimate +knowledge of the type to which he belongs. +Charlotte Brontë knew Jane Eyre inside and out; but +she did not know even the outside of Rochester. Because +women are debarred with the most sedulous care +from various experiences of existence they can never +know men as men can know women. This is the basis +for the shrewd remark that in dealing with affairs of +the heart men novelists rarely tell all they know, +whereas women novelists are often tempted to tell +more than they know. Even women like George Eliot +and George Sand, who have more or less broken out +of bounds, are still more or less confined to their individual +associations with the other sex; and they lack +the inexhaustible fund of information about life which +is the common property of men.</p> + +<p class="indent">Women have most satisfactorily displayed their +special endowment for fiction not in what must be +called the dramatic novel, not in soul-searching studies +like the 'Scarlet Letter' and 'Anna Karénine,' but +rather in less solidly supported inquiries into the interrelation +of character and social convention, as in 'Pride +and Prejudice' and 'Castle Rackrent.' It would be +unfair to assert that Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen +are superficial; yet it is not unfair to say that they do +not explore deeply, and that they do not deal with +what Stevenson called the great passionate crises of +existence, "when duty and inclination come nobly to +the grapple." This is the essential struggle of the +drama; and the authoress of 'Jane Eyre' sought to +present it boldly, even if she was handicapped by insufficient +information; and this essential struggle was +what Charlotte Brontë herself missed in Jane Austen: +"The passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects +even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy +sisterhood. What sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves +flexibly, it suits her to study; but what throbs fast +and full, tho hidden, what the blood rushes thru, what +is the unseen seat of life, and the sentient target of +death—this Miss Austen ignores."</p> + +<p class="indent">Jane Austen spent her great gift on the carving of +cherry-stones, laboring with exquisite art to lift into +temporary importance the eternally unimportant; and +Charlotte Brontë, in her ampler endeavor, was ever +hampered by inadequacy of knowledge. George Eliot, +with wider opportunity than either of these predecessors, +profited by both of them and borrowed their +processes in turn; she was broader than they were, and +bolder in her attack on life; her effort is more strenuously +intellectual than theirs, and therefore a little +fatiguing, and this is perhaps why her vogue seems now +to be evaporating slowly. And when all is said, no +one of these clever story-tellers really attains to an +altitude of accomplishment where she can fairly be +considered as a competitor of the mighty masters of +prose fiction. No woman novelist is to be ranked +among the supreme leaders, worthy to stand by the +side of Cervantes and Fielding, Balzac and Tolstoi. +The merits of the women novelists are many and they +are beyond cavil; but no one of them has yet been +able to handle a large theme powerfully and to interpret +life with the unhasting and unresting strength +which is the distinguishing mark of the mightier masters +of fiction.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">Furthermore, we find in the works of female storytellers +not only a lack of largeness in topic, but also a +lack of strictness in treatment. Their stories, even +when they charm us with apt portraiture and with +adroit situation, are likely to lack solidity of structure. +'Castle Rackrent,' an illuminating picture of human +nature in a special environment, is a straggling sequence +of episodes; 'Pride and Prejudice' is almost plotless, +when considered as a whole; and 'Romola' is ill-proportioned +and misshapen. No woman has ever +achieved the elaborate solidity of 'Tom Jones,' the +superb structure of the 'Scarlet Letter,' or the simple +unity of 'Smoke.' And here we come close to the most +obvious explanation of the dearth of female dramatists—in +the relative incapacity of women to build a plan, +to make a single whole compounded of many parts, +and yet dominated in every detail by but one purpose.</p> + +<p class="indent">The drama demands a plot, with a beginning, a +middle, and an end, and with everything rigorously +excluded which does not lead from the beginning thru +the middle to the end. The novel refuses to submit +itself to any such requirement; it can make shift to +exist without an articulated skeleton. There is little +or no plot, there is only a casual succession of more or +less unrelated incidents in 'Gil Blas' and 'Tristram +Shandy,' in the 'Pickwick Papers,' and in Huckleberry +Finn.' The novel may be invertebrate and yet +survive, whereas the play without a backbone is dead—which +is biologic evidence that the drama is higher +in the scale of creation than prose fiction.</p> + +<p class="indent">"The novel, as practised in English, is the perfect +paradise of the loose end," so Mr. Henry James once +pointed out, whereas "the play consents to the logic +of but one way, mathematically right, and with the +loose end as gross an impertinence on its surface and +as grave a dishonor as the dangle of a snippet of silk +or wool on the right side of a tapestry." The action +of a story may be what its writer pleases, and he can +reduce it to a minimum or embroider it at will with +airy arabesques of incessant digression; but the plot +of a play must be a straight line, the shortest distance +between two points, the point of departure and the +point of arrival. And it is because of this imperative +necessity for integrity of construction that the drama +is more difficult than prose fiction. Since a part of our +pleasure in any art is derived from our consciousness of +the obstacles to be overcome by the artist, and from +our recognition of the skill displayed by him in vanquishing +them, we have here added evidence in behalf +of the belief in the artistic superiority of the play over +the novel merely as a form of expression.</p> + +<p class="indent">The drama may be likened to the sister art of architecture +in its insistent demand for plan and proportion. +A play is a poor thing, likely to expire of inanition, +unless its author is possessed of the ability to +build a plot which shall be strong and simple and clear, +and unless he has the faculty of enriching it with abundant +accessories in accord with a scheme thought out +in advance and adhered to from start to finish. With +this constructive skill women seem to be less liberally +endowed than men; at least, they have not yet revealed +themselves as architects, altho they have won +a warm welcome as decorators—a subordinate art for +which they are fitted by their superior delicacy and by +their keener interest in details. Much of the pervasive +charm of many of the cleverest novels of female authorship +lies in the persistent ingenuity with which the +lesser points of character, of conduct, and of manners +are presented. In Jane Austen, in Maria Edgeworth, +and often also in George Eliot, we are delighted by +little miracles of observation, and by little triumphs +in the microscopic analysis of subtle and unsuspected +motives. But in these very books, the story, however +felicitously decorated, is not sustained by a severe +architectural framework. And it is this firm certainty +of structure that the drama imperatively demands.</p> + +<p class="indent">In other words, women seem to be less often dowered +than men with what Tyndall called "scientific imagination," +with the ability to put together a whole in which +the several parts are never permitted to distend a +disproportionate space. This scientific imagination is +essential to the playwright; and the novelist is fortunate +if he also possesses it, altho it is not essential to him. +A novel may be only a straggling succession of episodes; +a play must have fundamental unity. A novelist may +fire with a shot-gun and bring down his bird on the +wing, whereas a playwright needs a rifle to arrest the +charging lion.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is a significant fact that only once was George +Sand really triumphant as a dramatist, and that this +single success was won by the secret aid of the cleverest +of contemporary playwrights. She was passionately +devoted to the theater; she had many intimate friends +among the stage-folk; she delighted in private theatricals; +and she wrote a dozen or more plays, several of +them dramatized from her own stories. The sole play +which held its own on the stage in rivalry with the +best work of Augier and Dumas <i>fils</i> was the 'Marquis +de Villemer,' and it owed its more fortunate fate to +the gratuitous and unacknowledged collaboration of +Dumas <i>fils</i>.</p> + +<p class="indent">For the author of the 'Mariage de Victorine,' the +author of the 'Dame aux Camélias' had a high esteem, +which he took occasion to express more than once in +his critical papers; and she regarded him with semi-maternal +affection, often inviting him to join the little +parties at Nohant. On one of his visits he heard her +say that she was intending to dramatize the 'Marquis +de Villemer,' but that she did not quite see her way +to compact its leisurely action in conformity with the +rigid restrictions of the stage. That evening he borrowed +a copy of the novel to take up to his own room; +and the next morning when he came down to the late +breakfast, he laid before her half a dozen sheets of +paper, whereon she found a complete scenario for her +guidance, an adroit division of her novel into acts and +scenes, needing only to be clothed with dialog. With +his intuitive understanding of the principles of play-making, +and with his masterly power of construction, +he had solved her problems for her and made it easy +for her to write the play.</p> + +<p class="indent">Here is an unexampled kind of collaboration, since +the invention of the story, the creation of the characters, +the dialog to be spoken—these were all due to +George Sand alone; but the concentrating of the interest, +the heightening of the personages of the narrative +to adjust themselves to the perspective of the +theater, the serried and irresistible momentum of the +action—these were the contribution of Dumas, a freewill +offering to his old friend. The piece that she wrote +was hers and hers alone, and yet it had a dramatic +vitality lacking in all her other plays, because a man +had intervened at the right moment to provide the +architectural framework which the woman could not +have bestowed upon it, however felicitous she might +be in the decoration.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">Thus it is that we can supply two answers to the two +questions posed at the beginning of this inquiry: Why +is it that there are so few women playwrights? And +why is it that the infrequent plays produced by women +playwrights rarely attain high rank? The explanation +is to be found in two facts: first, the fact that women +are likely to have only a definitely limited knowledge +of life, and, second, the fact that they are likely also to +be more or less deficient in the faculty of construction. +The first of these disabilities may tend to disappear if +ever the feminist movement shall achieve its ultimate +victory; and the second may depart also whenever +women submit themselves to the severe discipline +which has compelled men to be more or less logical.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1915.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">VIII<br /> +THE EVOLUTION OF SCENE-PAINTING<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE EVOLUTION OF SCENE-PAINTING<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Only</span> recently have students of the stage seized the +full significance of the fact that dramatic literature is +always conditioned by the circumstances of the special +theater for which it was designed. They are at last +beginning to perceive that they need to know how a +play was originally represented by actors before an +audience and in a theater to enable them to appreciate +adequately the technical skill of the playwright who +composed it. The dramatist is subdued to what he +works in; and he can accomplish only that which is +possible in the particular playhouse for which his +pieces were destined. For the immense open air auditorium +of ancient Athens, with its orchestra leveled +at the foot of the curving hillside whereon thousands +of spectators took their places, the dramatic poet had +to select a simple story and to build massively. For the +unadorned platform of the Tudor theater, with its +arras pendent from the gallery above the stage, and +with its restless groundlings standing in the yard, +the playwright was compelled to heap up swift episodes +violent with action. For the eighteenth-century playhouse, +with its apron projecting far beyond the line of +the curtain, the dramatist was tempted to revel in +ornate eloquence and in elaborate wit. And nowadays +the dramatic author utilizes skilfully all the manifold +resources of the twentieth-century picture-frame stage, +not only to give external reality to the several places +where his story is supposed to be laid, but also to lend +to these stage-sets the characteristic atmosphere demanded +by his theme.</p> + +<p class="indent">Merely literary critics, secluded in their studies, intent +upon the poetry of a play and desirous of deducing +its philosophy, rarely seek to visualize a performance +on the stage, and they are, therefore, inclined to be +disdainful of the purely theatrical conditions to which +its author has had, perforce, to adjust his work. As +a result they sometimes misunderstand the dramatic +poet's endeavors, and they often misinterpret his intentions. +On the other hand, purely theatrical critics +may be inclined to pay too much attention to stage-arrangements, +stage-business, and stage-settings, and +even on occasion to disregard the dramatist's message +and his power of creating character to consider his technic +alone. And yet it can scarcely be denied that the +theatrical critics are nearer to the proper method of +approach than the literary critics who neglect the light +which a careful consideration of stage-conditions and +of stage-traditions may cast upon the masterpieces of +the drama.</p> + +<p class="indent">Since all these masterpieces of the drama were devised +to be heard and to be seen rather than to be read, +the great dramatic poets have always been solicitous +about the visual appeal of their plays. They have ever +been anxious to garnish their pieces with the utmost +scenic embellishment and the utmost spectacular accompaniment +of the special kind that a play of that +particular type could profit by. In view of the importance +of this scenic embellishment and of its influence +upon the methods of the successive playwrights, +there is cause for wonder that we have no satisfactory +attempt to tell the history of the art of the scene-painter +as this has been developed thru the long ages. +The materials for this narrative are abundant, even if +they still lie in confusion. Certain parts of the field +have been surveyed here and there; but no substantial +treatise has yet been devoted to this alluring investigation. +The scholar who shall hereafter undertake +the task will need a double qualification; he must +master the annals of painting in Renascence Italy, and +later in France and in England, and he must familiarize +himself with the circumstances of the theater at the +several periods when the art of the scene-painter made +its successive steps in advance.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is partly because we have no manual covering +the whole field that we find so many unwarranted assertions +in the studies of the scholars who confine their +criticism to a single period of the development of the +drama. Partly also is this due to the fact that we are +each of us so accustomed to the theaters of our own +century and of our own country that we find it difficult +not to assume similar conditions in the theaters +of other centuries and other countries. Thus the +Shaksperian commentators of the early eighteenth century +seem not to have doubted that the English playhouse +in the days of Elizabeth was not unlike the English +playhouse in the days of Anne; and as a result +they cut up the plays of Shakspere into acts and into +scenes, each supposed to take place in a different spot, +in accord with the eighteenth-century stage practise, +and absolutely without any justification from the +customs of the Tudor theater. This was the result +of looking back and of believing that the late sixteenth-century +stage must have resembled the early eighteenth-century +stage. We are now beginning to see +that, in any effort to recapture the methods of the +Elizabethan theater, we must first understand the +customs of the medieval stage, and then look forward +from that point. Of all places in the world the +playhouse is, perhaps, the most conservative, and the +most reluctant to relinquish anything which has proved +its utility in the past and which is accepted by the +public in the present; and many of the peculiarities +of the Tudor theater are survivals from the medieval +performances.</p> + +<p class="indent">There are still to be found classical scholars who +accept the existence of a raised stage in the theater of +Dionysus at Athens, and even of painted scenery such +as we moderns know; and they find support in the assertion +of Aristotle that among the improvements due +to Sophocles was the introduction of "scenery." But +what did the Greek word in the text of Aristotle which +is rendered into English as "scenery" really mean? +At least, what did it connote to an Athenian? Something +very different, we may be sure, from what the +term "scenery" connotes to us. Certainly, the physical +conditions of the stageless Attic theater precluded +the possibilities of painted scenes such as we are now +familiar with. That there were no methods of representing +realistically, or even summarily, the locality +where the action is taking place is proved by the detailed +descriptions of these localities which the dramatic +poet was careful to put into the mouths of his characters +whenever he wished the audience to visualize the +appropriate background of the action. We may be +assured that the dramatists would never have wasted +time in describing what the spectators had before their +eyes. Ibsen and Rostand and d'Annunzio are poets, +each in his own fashion, but their plays are devoid of +all descriptions of the special locality where the action +passes—that task has been spared them by the labors +of the modern scene-painter working upon their specific +directions.</p> + +<p class="indent">As there was no scenery in the Greek theater so +there was little or none in the Roman. M. Camille +Saint-Saëns once suggested that certain airy scaffoldings +in the Pompeian wall-paintings were perhaps derived +from scenic accessories. But this seems unlikely +enough; and the surviving Latin playhouses have a +wide and shallow stage closed in by a sumptuous architectural +background, suggesting the front of a palace +with three portals, often conveniently utilized as the +entrances to the separate dwellings of the several characters. +Again, we may infer the absence of scenery +from the elaboration with which Plautus, for one, localizes +the habitations of his leading characters. In +Rome, as in Athens, some kind of a summary indication +of locality, some easily understood symbol, may +have been employed; but of scene-painting, as we +moderns know the art, there is not a trace.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">It is not until we come to the mysteries of the Middle +Ages that we find the beginnings of the modern art, +and even here it is only a most rudimentary attempt +that we can discover. The mystery probably developed +earliest in France, as it certainly flourished there most +abundantly; and the French represented the dramatized +Bible story on a long, shallow platform, at the +back of which they strung along a row of summary +indications of certain necessary places, beginning with +Heaven on the spectator's left, and ending with Hell +on his right, and including the Temple, the house of +the high priest and the palace of Herod. These necessary +places were called "mansions," and they served +to localize the action whenever this was deemed advisable, +the front of the platform remaining a neutral +ground which might be anywhere. But these mansions +do not prove the existence of scene-painters; +they were very slight erections, a canopy over an altar +serving to indicate the Temple, and a little portico +sufficing to represent a palace; and they were probably +built by house-carpenters and painted by housepainters, +just as any boat which might be called for +would be constructed by the shipwrights.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_161" id="image_161"></a> +<img src="images/i_161.png" alt="The Roman Theater at Orange +From the model at the Paris Opéra + +The multiple set of the French medieval stage +From the model in the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University + +The set of the Italian comedy of masks" +title="The Roman Theater at Orange +From the model at the Paris Opéra + +The multiple set of the French medieval stage +From the model in the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University + +The set of the Italian comedy of masks" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">And as we need not assume the forming of a guild +of scene-painters because of these mansions which +performed some of the functions of our modern scenery, +so also we must not assume it because the medieval +artisans invented a variety of elaborate spectacular +devices, flying angels, for example, and roaring flames +from Hell-Mouth. Even in the stageless and sceneless +Attic theater, there had been many mechanical +effects of one kind or another, especially in the plays +of Euripides—the soaring dragon-chariot of Medea, +for instance, and the similar contrivance whereby a +god might descend from the skies. Mechanical tricks +even when they are most ingenious, do not imply the +aid of the scene-painter; and even to-day they are the +special task of the property-man, or of the master-mechanic, +altho the scene-painter's aid may be invoked +also to make them more effective. That there +were property-makers in the Middle Ages admits of +no doubt, and also highly skilled artificers delighting +in the daring ingenuity of their inventions. There were +abundant properties, it may be noted, on the Elizabethan +stage, well-heads, thrones, and arbors; and +Henslow's diary records payment for a variety of such +accessories. But there is not in that invaluable document +a single entry indicating any payment for anything +equivalent to the work of the scene-painter.</p> + +<p class="indent">Adroit as were the French mechanics who prepared +the abundant spectacular effects of the medieval mysteries, +they were surpassed in skill by the Italian engineers +of the Renascence, who lent their aid to the +superb outdoor festivals wherein the expanding artistic +energy of the period was most magnificently displayed. +Leonardo da Vinci did not disdain to design +machines disclosing a surprising fertility of resource. +It was from those outdoor spectacles of the Italians +that the French court-ballets are directly descended, +and also the English masks, which demanded the collaboration +of Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson. But at +first the Italians got along without the aid of the yet +unborn scene-painter, and the inventions of the engineer +were carried out by the mechanic and the decorator. +Even as late as the seventeenth century a +magnificent spectacle presented in the garden of the +Pitti Palace in Florence relied mainly upon the ingenious +engineer and scarcely at all upon the scene-painter. +It seems probable that it is here in Italy in +the Renascence, and at first as an accompaniment of +the outdoor spectacle, or of its indoor rival, that the +art of the actual scene-painter had its birth. The engineers +required the aid of the artists—indeed, in those +days, when there was little specialization of function, +the engineers were almost always artists themselves, +capable of their own decoration.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_165" id="image_165"></a> +<img src="images/i_165.png" alt="" title="" /><br /> +<span class="caption">An outdoor entertainment in the gardens of the Pitti Palace in Florence in the early sixteenth century<br /> +From a contemporary print</span></div> + +<p class="indent">In time there would be necessary specialization, and +after a while certain artists came to devote themselves +chiefly to scene-painting, finding their immediate opportunity +in the decoration of the operas, which then +began to multiply. The opera has always been aristocratic, +expensive, and spectacular, and it continued +the tradition of the highly decorated open-air festivals. +In fact, it improved upon this tradition, in so far as +that was possible, and it achieved a variety of mechanical +effects scarcely less complicated than those which +charm our eyes to-day in 'Rheingold' and 'Parsifal.' +Thirty years ago the late Charles Nuitter, the archivist +of the Paris Opéra and himself a librettist of wide experience, +drew my attention to Sabbatini's 'Practica di +fabricar scene e machini ne' teatri' (published in 1638), +and he assured me that the resources of the Opéra did +not go beyond those which were at the command of the +Italians three centuries earlier. "They could do then," +he asserted, "almost everything that we can do now +here at the Opéra. For example, they could bring a +ship on the stage under full sail. We have only one +superiority over them: we have abundant light now, +we have electricity, and they were dependent on candles +and lamps."</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet even in Italy in the Renascence the most popular +form of the drama, the improvised play which we +call the comedy-of-masks, was performed in a traditional +stage-setting representing an open square, +whereon only the back-cloth seems to have been the +work of the scene-painter, the sides of the stage being +occupied by four or more houses, two or three on each +side, often consisting of little more than a practicable +door with a practicable window over it, not made of +canvas, but constructed out of wood by the carpenter, +with the solidity demanded by the climbing feats of +the athletic comedians and by their acrobatic agility. +The traditional set of the comedy-of-masks conformed +to that recommended for the comic drama by Serlio, +in his treatise on architecture, published in 1545; but +it may be noted also that Serlio's suggested set for the +tragic drama was not dissimilar even if it were distinctly +more dignified.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">The opera seems to have been the direct descendant +of the court-ballet, known in England as the mask, +as that in its turn was derived from the open-air spectacle +of the Italian Renascence, such as survived in +Florence in the seventeenth century. In the beginning +the court-ballets of France, like the masks of England, +were not given in a theater with a stage shut off +by a proscenium arch, but in the ball-room or banqueting-hall +of a palace. One end of this spacious +apartment, often but not always provided with a +raised platform, served as the stage whereon one or +more places, a mountain, for instance, and a grotto, +were represented, at first by the decorated machines of +the artistic engineers only, but afterward by the canvas +frames of scene-painters. The action of the court-ballets +or of the masks was not necessarily confined to +this stage, so to call it. The spectators were ranged +along the walls and under the galleries (if there were +any), leaving the main part of the hall bare; and the +performers descended frequently into this area, which +was kept free for them, and which was better fitted for +their dances and processions and other intricate evolutions +than the scant and cluttered stage.</p> + +<p class="indent">A twentieth-century analog to this sixteenth-century +practise can be seen in the spectacle presented in our +modern three-ringed circuses—the 'Cleopatra,' for example, +which was the opening number on the Barnum +and Bailey program not long ago, where the Roman +troops and the Egyptian populace came down from the +stage and paraded around the arena. Bacon in his +essay on 'Masques,' used the word "scenery" as tho +he meant only decorated scaffolds, perhaps movable; +and his expression of desire for room "to be kept clear" +implies the use of the body of the hall for the maneuvers +of the performers. Ludovic Celler, in his study of +'Mise en scène au dix-septième siècle' in France, shows +that the action of the court-ballet was sometimes intermitted +that the spectators could join in the dancing, +as at an ordinary ball. In the earlier Italian open-air +festivals, and in the earlier French court-ballets there +was not even a proscenium sharply separating the +stage from the rest of the hall; but in England by the +time of Inigo Jones the advantage of a proscenium +had been discovered, and we have more than one of +the sketches which that skilful designer devised for +his masks. But even then this proscenium was not +permanent and architecturally conventionalized; it was +invented afresh for every successive entertainment, +and it was adorned with devices peculiar to that particular +mask. Inigo Jones had also advanced to the +use of actual scenery, that is to say, of canvas stretched +upon frames and then painted. Mr. Hamilton Bell +believes it possible that the invention of grooves to +sustain wings and flats may be ascribed to Inigo or to +his assistant and successor, Webb.</p> + +<p class="indent">Even in the Italian opera, where all the scenery was +due to the brush of the scene-painter, there was for a +long while a formal and monotonous regularity. +Whether the set was an interior or an exterior, a public +place or a hall in a palace, the arrangement was rectangular, +with a drop at the back and a series of wings +on either side equidistant from one another. This stiff +representation of a locality is preserved for us nowadays +in the toy-theaters which we buy for our children, +altho it is now seen on the actual stage only in certain +acts of old-fashioned operas. It lingers also in the +variety-shows, where it is the proper setting for many +items of their miscellaneous programs.</p> + +<p class="indent">Altho the Italians had discovered perspective early +in the Renascence they utilized it on the stage timidly +at first, bestowing this rectangular regularity upon all +their sets, both architectural interiors or exteriors and +rural scenes, in which rigid wood-wings receded, diminishing +in height to a landscape painted on the drop at +the back, thus leaving the whole stage free for the actors. +Not until the end of the seventeenth century did an +Italian scene-painter, Bibiena, venture to abandon the +balanced symmetry of the square set, and to slant his +perspective so as to present buildings at an acute angle, +thereby not only gaining a pleasing variety, but also +enlarging immensely the apparent spaciousness of the +scene, since he was able to carry the eyes of the spectator +into vague distances, and to suggest far more +than he was able to display. This advance was accompanied +by a more liberal use of stairways and platforms—"practicables" +as the stage-phrase is—that is to say, +built up by the carpenters so that the actors could go +from one level to another. Hitherto flights of steps +and balconies had been only painted, not being intended +for actual use by the performers.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_171" id="image_171"></a> +<img src="images/i_171.png" alt="The set for the opera of 'Persée' (as performed at the +Opéra in Paris in the seventeenth century) + +A prison (designed by Bibiena in Italy in the +eighteenth century)" title="The set for the opera of 'Persée' (as performed at the +Opéra in Paris in the seventeenth century) + +A prison (designed by Bibiena in Italy in the +eighteenth century)" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">A similar development took place also in the landscape +scenes; the foreground was raised irregularly, so +that the persons of the play might climb up. Practicable +bridges were swung across torrents, and the +earlier formality of pastoral scenes began to disappear. +Apparently the scene-painters were influenced at this +time by the landscape-painters, more especially by +Poussin. The interrelation of painting and scene-painting, +each in turn affecting the other, is far closer +than most historians of art have perceived. It is not +unlikely, for example, that Gainsborough and Constable, +who were the fathers of the Barbizon men, had +been stimulated by the stage-pictures of De Lutherbourg. +David Garrick profited by the innovating art +of De Lutherbourg, a pupil of Vanloo, who came to +England in 1771. Apparently it was De Lutherbourg +who invented "raking-pieces"—as the scene-painters +term the low fragments of scenery which mask the inclines +of mounds. To him also is credited the first +use of transparent scenes to reproduce the effect of +moonlight upon water, and to suggest the flames of +volcanoes. Thus to him must be ascribed the beginnings +of that complicated realism by which our latter-day +scene-painters are enabled to create an appropriate +atmosphere for poetic episodes.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">The next step in advance, and one of the most important +in the slow development of the scene-painter's +art, took place in France early in the nineteenth century, +and simultaneous with the romanticist movement, +which modified the aims and ambitions of the +artists as much as it did those of the poets. The +severe stateliness of the stage-set which was adequate +for the classicist tragedies of Racine and Voltaire, +generally a vague interior of an indefinite palace, stiff +and empty, was hopelessly unsuitable for the fiery +dramas of Victor Hugo and the elder Dumas. An +even greater opportunity for spectacular regeneration +was afforded, in these same early decades of the nineteenth +century, by the bold and moving librettos which +Scribe constructed for Meyerbeer and Halévy at the +Opéra, and for Auber at the Opéra-Comique. The +exciting cause of the scenic complexities that we find +in Wagner's music-dramas can be discovered in these +librettos of Scribe's, from 'Robert the Devil' to the +'Africaine.' For one act of 'Robert the Devil,' that in +which the spectral nuns dance among the tombs under +the rays of the moon, Ciceri invented the most striking +and novel setting yet exhibited on any stage—a setting +not surpassed in poetic glamor by any since seen in the +theater, altho its eery beauty may have been rivaled by +one scene in the 'Source,' a ballet produced also at the +Opéra forty-five years ago—a moon-lit tarn in a forest-glade, +with half-seen sylphs floating lightly over its +silvered surface. This exquisitely poetic set was imported +from Paris to New York and inserted in the +brilliant spectacle of the 'White Fawn.'</p> + +<p class="indent">The ample effect of these scenes was made possible +only by the immense improvement in the illumination +of the stage due to the introduction of gas. Up to the +first quarter of the nineteenth century the stage-decorator +had been dependent upon lamps—a few of +these arranged at the rim of the curving apron which +jutted out into the auditorium far beyond the proscenium, +and a few more hidden here and there in the +flies and wings. Early in the nineteenth century gas +supplanted oil; and a little later than the middle of the +century gas was powerfully supplemented by the calcium +light. Toward the end of the century gas in its +turn gave way to the far more useful electric light, +which could be directed anywhere in any quantity, +and which could be controlled and colored at will. It +was Henry Irving, more especially in his marvelous +mounting of a rather tawdry version of 'Faust,' who +revealed the delicate artistic possibilities of our modern +facilities for stage illumination.</p> + +<p class="indent">In France the romanticist movement of Hugo was +swiftly succeeded by the realistic movement of Balzac, +who was the earliest novelist to relate the leading personages +of his studies from life to a characteristic +background and to bring out the intimate association +of persons and places. From prose fiction this evocation +of characteristic surroundings was taken over by +the drama; and a persistent effort was made to have +the successive sets of a play suggestive and significant +in themselves, and also representative of the main +theme of the piece. The actors were no longer dependent +upon the "float," as the footlights were called; +they did not need to advance out on the apron to let +the spectators follow the changing expression of their +faces, and in time the apron was cut back to the line +of the proscenium, and the curtain rose and fell in a +picture-frame which cut the actors off from their proximity +to the audience—a proximity forever tempting +the dramatic poet to the purely oratorical effects proper +enough on a platform.</p> + +<p class="indent">When the modern play calls for an interior this interior +now takes on the semblance of an actual room. +Apparently the "box-set," as it is called, the closed-in +room with its walls and its ceiling, was first seen in +England in 1841, when 'London Assurance' was produced; +but very likely it had earlier made its appearance +in Paris at the Gymnase. To supply a room with +walls of a seeming solidity, with doors and with windows, +appears natural enough to us, but it was a startling +innovation fourscore years ago. When the 'School +for Scandal' had been originally produced at Drury +Lane in 1775, the library of Joseph Surface, where Lady +Teazle hides behind the screen, was represented by a +drop at the back, on which a window was painted, and +by wings set starkly parallel to this back-drop and +painted to represent columns. There were no doors; +and Joseph and Charles, Sir Peter and Lady Teazle, +walked on thru the openings between the wings, very +much as tho they were passing thru the non-existent +walls. To us, this would be shocking; but it was perfectly +acceptable to English playgoers then; and to +them it seemed natural, since they were familiar with +no other way of getting into a room on the stage.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_177" id="image_177"></a> +<img src="images/i_177.png" alt="" title="" /><br /> +<span class="caption">The screen scene of the 'School for Scandal' at Drury Lane in 1778<br /> +From a contemporary print</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">The invention of the box-set, of a room with walls +and ceilings, doors and windows, led inevitably to the +appropriate furnishing of this room with tangible tables +and chairs. Even in the eighteenth century the stage +had been very empty; it was adorned only with the +furniture actually demanded by the action of the drama; +and the rest of the furniture, bookcases and sideboards, +chairs and tables, was frankly painted on the wings +and on the back-drop by the side of the painted mantelpieces, +the painted windows, and the painted doors. In +the plays of the twentieth century characters sit down +and change from seat to seat; but in the plays produced +in England and in France before the first quarter +of the nineteenth century all the actors stood all the +time—or at least they were allowed to sit only under +the stress of dramatic necessity—as in the fourth act +of 'Tartuffe,' for instance. In all of Molière's comedies +there are scarcely half a dozen characters who have +occasion to sit down; and this sitting-down is limited +to three or four of his more than thirty pieces. Nowadays +every effort is made to capture the external +realities of life. Sardou was not more careful in composing +his stage-sittings in his fashion than was Ibsen +in prescribing the scenic environment that he needed. +The author's minute descriptions of the scenes where +the action of the 'Doll's House' and of 'Ghosts' passes +prove that Ibsen had visualized sharply the precise +interior which was, in his mind, the only possible home +for the creatures of his imagination. And Mr. Belasco +has recently bestowed upon the winning personality +of his 'Peter Grimm' the exact habitation to which +that appealing creature would return in his desire to +undo after death what in life he had rashly commanded.</p> + +<p class="h2">V</p> + +<p class="indent">While the scene-painter of our time is most often +called upon to realize the actual in an interior and to +delight us with a room the dominant quality of which +is that it looks as tho it was really lived in by the personages +we see moving around in it, he is not confined +to those domestic scenes. There are other plays than +the modern social dramas; and these other plays make +other demands upon the artist. On occasion he has +to supply a gorgeous scenic accompaniment for the +Roman and Egyptian episodes of 'Antony and Cleopatra,' +to suggest the blasted heath where Macbeth +may meet the weird sisters, and to call up before our +delighted eyes the placid charm of the Forest of Arden. +The awkward and inconsistent sky-borders, strips of +pendent canvas wholly unsatisfactory as substitutes +for the vast depths of the starry heavens, he is able +to dispense with by lowering a little the hangings at +the top edge of the picture-frame, and by thus limiting +the upward gaze of the spectators, so that he can +forgo the impossible attempt to imitate the changing +sky. He can achieve an effect of limitless space, as in +the last act of the 'Garden of Allah' (which brings before +us the endless vision of Sahara), by the use of a +cyclorama background, the drop being suspended from +a semicircular rod which runs around the top of the +stage, shutting in the view absolutely, and yet yielding +itself to a representation of sand and sky meeting afar +off on the faint horizon.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_181" id="image_181"></a> +<img src="images/i_181.png" alt="A landscape set +Designed by P. Fontanesi in Italy in the eighteenth century + +A set for the opera of 'Robert le Diable' +At the Paris Opéra" +title="A landscape set +Designed by P. Fontanesi in Italy in the eighteenth century + +A set for the opera of 'Robert le Diable' +At the Paris Opéra" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">In the past half-century, and more especially since +the improvement of the electric light, scene-painting +has become very elaborate and very expensive. Instead +of being kept in its proper place as the decoration +of the drama, as a beautiful accessory of the action, +it has often been pushed to the front, so as to attract +attention to itself, and thereby to distract attention +from the play which it was supposed to illuminate. +Sometimes Shakspere has been smothered in scenery, +and sometimes the art of the actor has been subordinated +to the art of the scene-painter. Now, it must +be admitted that nothing is too good for the masterpieces +of the drama, and that Sophocles no less than +Shakspere ought to be presented to the public with all +the pomp that his lofty themes and his marvelous +workmanship may demand. But the plays of the +mighty dramatic poets ought not to be used merely as +pegs on which to hang gorgeous apparel. After all, +the play's the thing; and whenever the scene-painter +and his invading partner, the stage-manager, are +prompted to oust the drama from its pre-eminence, and +to substitute an exhibition of their accessory arts, the +result is a betrayal of the playwright.</p> + +<p class="indent">A well-known British art critic once told me that +when the curtain rose at a certain London revival of +'Twelfth Night,' and disclosed Olivia's garden, he sat +entranced at the beauty of the spectacle before his +eyes, with its subtle harmonies of color, so entranced, +indeed, that he found himself distinctly annoyed when +the actors came on the stage and began to talk. For +the moment, at least, he wished them away, as disturbers +of his esthetic delight in the lovely picture on +which his eyes were feasting. But even a stage-setting +as captivating as this might very well be justified if +it had been employed to fill a gap in the action, and to +buttress up the interest of an episode where the dramatist +had allowed the appeal of his story to relax. +Perrin, the manager of the Comédie-Française thirty +years ago, declined to produce a French version of +'Othello' because he found a certain dramatic emptiness +in the scenes at Cyprus at the opening of the second +act, which he felt he would have to mask by the +beauty of spectacular decoration, too costly an expedient +in his opinion for the finances of the theater +just then.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_185" id="image_185"></a> +<img src="images/i_185.png" alt="The set of the last act of the Garden of Allah +From the model in the Dramatic Museum +of Columbia University + +A set for Medea +Designed by Herr Gustav Lindemann" +title="The set of the last act of the Garden of Allah +From the model in the Dramatic Museum +of Columbia University + +A set for Medea +Designed by Herr Gustav Lindemann" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">It was Perrin, however, who produced the French +version of the 'Œdipus the King' of Sophocles, and who +bestowed upon it a single set of wonderful charm and +power, at once dignified, appropriate, and beautiful +in itself. It represented an open space between a +temple and the palace of the ill-fated Œdipus, with an +altar in the center, and with the profile of another +temple projected against the distant sky and relieved +by the tall, thin outline of poplar-trees. The monotony +of this rectangular architectural construction +was avoided by placing all the buildings on a slant, +the whole elevation of the temple being visible on the +left of the spectators, whereas only a corner of the +colonnade of the palace on the right was displayed. +This set at the Théâtre-Français was the absolute antithesis +of the original scenic surroundings in the theater +of Dionysus more than two thousand years ago, when +the masterpiece of Sophocles had been performed in +the open-air orchestra, with only a hut of skins or a +temporary wooden building to serve as a background +for the bas-reliefs of the action.</p> + +<p class="indent">So elaborate, complicated, and costly have stage-sets +become in the past half-century, that there are +already signs of the violent reaction that might be +expected. Mr. Gordon Craig, an artist of remarkable +individuality, has gone so far as to propose what is +almost an abolition of scene-painting. He seeks to +attain effects of massive simplicity by the use of unadorned +hangings and of undecorated screens, thus +substituting vast spaces for the realistic details of the +modern scene-painter. No doubt, there are a few +plays for which this method of mounting would be appropriate +enough—M. Maeterlinck's 'Intruder,' for one, +and his 'Sightless' for another, plays which are independent +of time and space, and in which the action +appears to pass in some undiscovered limbo. As yet +the advanced and iconoclastic theories of Mr. Craig +have made few adherents, the most notable being the +German, "Professor" Reinhardt, who lacks Mr. +Craig's fine feeling for form and color, and who is continually +tempted into rather ugly eccentricities of design, +being apparently moved by the desire to be different +from his predecessors rather than by the wish to +be superior to them.</p> + +<p class="h2">VI</p> + +<p class="indent">Interesting as are Mr. Craig's suggestions, and wellfounded +as may be his protest against the excessive +ornamentation to which we are too prone nowadays, +there is no reason to fear that his principles will prevail. +The art of the scene-painter is too welcome, it +is too plainly in accord with the predilections of the +twentieth century, for it to be annihilated by the fiat +of a daring and reckless innovator. It will be wise +if the producers should harken to Mr. Craig's warnings +and curb their tendency to needless extravagance; +but we may rest assured that a return to the bareness +of the Attic theater or of the English theater in the +time of the Tudors is frankly unthinkable now that the +art of scene-painting has been developed to its present +possibilities. In fact, the probability is rather that +the scene-painters will continue to enlarge the boundaries +of their territory and to discover new means and +new methods of delighting our eyes by their evocations +of interesting places.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_189" id="image_189"></a> +<img src="images/i_189.png" alt="The set of Œdipe-Roi (at the Théâtre Français) + +The set of the Return of Peter Grimm +From the model in the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University" +title="The set of Œdipe-Roi (at the Théâtre Français) + +The set of the Return of Peter Grimm +From the model in the Dramatic Museum of Columbia University" /><br /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps they would be more encouraged to go on +and conquer new worlds if there was a wider recognition +of the artistic value of their work. Altho De +Lutherbourg and Clarkson Stanfield won honorable +positions in the history of painting by their easel-pictures, +the art of scene-painting does not hold the +place in the public esteem that many of its practitioners +deserve. Théophile Gautier, often negligible as a +critic of the acted drama, was always worth listening +to when he turned to pictorial art; and he was frequent +in praise of the scene-painters of his time and of scene-painting +itself as a craft of exceeding difficulty and of +inadequate appreciation. Probably one reason why +the scene-painter has not received his due meed of +praise is because his work is not preserved. It exists +only during the run of the play which it decorates. +When the piece disappears from the boards, the scenes +which adorned it vanish from sight. They linger only +in the memory of those who happened to see this one +play—and even then, in fact, only in the memory of +such spectators as have trained themselves to pay +attention to stage-pictures. For the scene-painter +there is no Luxembourg; still less is there any Louvre. +As Gautier sympathetically declared, "it is sad to think +that nothing survives of those masterpieces destined to +live a few evenings only, and disappearing from the +washed canvas to give place to other marvels, equally +fugitive. How much invention, talent, and genius may +be lost—and not always leaving even a name!"</p> + +<p class="indent">It is pleasant to know that at the Opéra in Paris a +formal order of the government has for now a half-century +prescribed the preservation of the original +models—the little miniature sets which the scene-painter +submits for the approval of the manager and +the dramatist before he begins work upon the actual +scene. These models are always upon the same scale, +and in the gallery connected with the library of the +Opéra a dozen of these models are set up to be viewed +by visitors. Of course no tiny model, however cleverly +fashioned, can give the full effect of the scene which +has been conceived in terms of a huge stage; and yet +the miniature reproductions do not betray the scene-painter +as much as an engraving or a photograph often +betrays the painter. Whatever its limitations, and +they are obvious enough, the collection of models at +the Opéra is at least an attempt to retard the oblivion +that Théophile Gautier deplored, and to provide for +the scene-painter a substitute, however inadequate, +for the Louvre and the Luxembourg.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">IX<br />THE BOOK OF THE OPERA<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE BOOK OF THE OPERA<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">A few</span> years ago <i>Punch</i> had a satirical drawing representing +a British matron conveying a bevy of youthful +daughters to the French play in London. To a +friend who called her attention to the rather risky +atmosphere of the very Parisian comedy which they +were about to behold, the worthy mother promptly explained +that she was not bringing her daughters to see +the play itself; she was bringing them to see only the +acting. Probably a great many opera-goers would +make a similar explanation if they were asked whether +they were interested in the book of the opera or only +in the music. They would be likely to protest that +they cared little or nothing for the libretto, and that +they were attracted solely by the score. But, as a +matter of fact, the opera-goers who might make this +reply would be self-deceived. Whether they are aware +of it or not, they are unlikely to be attracted to any +opera unless it happens to have an interesting story, +built up into a coherent and captivating plot. When +the libretto is unintelligible or uninteresting, the most +delightful music fails to allure them into the opera-house. +This is one of the reasons why the 'Magic +Flute,' which contains much of Mozart's most beautiful +melodic invention, is so rarely heard in our opera-houses, +and why it is so sparsely attended when it is +presented. The libretto of the 'Magic Flute' is dull +and ineffective, and even Mozart's genius proved unable +to overcome this initial handicap.</p> + +<p class="indent">The ordinary opera-goer is likely to treat the libretto +with calm contempt. He is prone to assert that nobody +cares about the words, and he does not reflect that behind +and beneath the words is the supporting structure +of the story. After all, an opera is a play, it is a music-drama, +and the plot is as important in a play the words +of which are to be sung as in a play the words of which +are to be spoken. True it is, of course, that in an +opera the words may not be heard distinctly, and perhaps +they need not be seized with certainty, since the +emotion they set forth is more amply conveyed by +the music. But the musician cannot express emotion +musically, unless there is emotion for him to express, +unless he has characters immeshed in a series of situations +which evoke vivid and contrasting sentiments +for him to translate into music. As the music-drama +is a drama, it must obey the laws of the drama; it +must represent a conflict of contending desires; it +must be carried on by characters firm of purpose and +resolute in achieving their several aims. These characters +must be sharply individualized and boldly contrasted; +and the story in which they take part must +be at once strong and simple, calling for no elaborate +explanation and moving forward steadily and irresistibly. +It must have a lyric aspect, lending itself naturally +to song; and it ought also to afford opportunity +for the spectacular effects appropriate to the large +stage of the opera-house.</p> + +<p class="indent">So contemptuous of the libretto is the ordinary +opera-goer that he rarely inquires as to the name of +the author of the book, altho he is generally familiar +with the name of the composer of the score. He may +or he may not be aware that Wagner was his own +librettist, and quite possibly he supposes that it is the +ordinary custom of the composers to write the words +for their own music. He knows that 'Carmen' was +composed by Bizet, and that the 'Huguenots' was composed +by Meyerbeer; but he would be greatly puzzled +if he was asked to name the librettists of these two +operas, the adroit playwrights who devised the skeletons +of dramatic action which sustained the composers and +provided them with ample opportunities for the exercise +of their melodic gift. As a matter of fact, the book +of 'Carmen' was written in collaboration by two of the +most distinguished French dramatists of the nineteenth +century, Meilhac and Halévy, the authors of +'Froufrou' and of the librettos of Offenbach's 'Belle +Hélène,' 'Grand Duchess of Gérolstein,' and 'Périchole.' +And the book of the 'Huguenots' was the +work of the master stage-craftsman, Scribe, the author +of 'Adrienne Lecouvreur' and of the 'Ladies' Battle,' +and of countless other plays performed in every modern +language, and in all the countries of the world.</p> + +<p class="indent">Bizet wrote other operas besides 'Carmen,' and if +these other operas have vanished from the stage, the +reason may be that the librettos to which they were +composed were not as ingenious and not as interesting +as the book of 'Carmen.' One of these forgotten operas +of Bizet's was a dramatization of the 'Fair Maid +of Perth,' and another was called the 'Pearl Fisher'; +but neither of these books was devised by Meilhac and +Halévy. And Scribe was not only the librettist of the +'Huguenots' and of the 'Africaine' for Meyerbeer; he +also wrote the books of 'Fra Diavolo' and of 'Crown +Diamonds' for Auber, the book of the 'Dame Blanche' +for Boïeldieu, and the book of the 'Juive' for Halévy. +Indeed, it is evident that Wagner himself as a librettist +must be considered as a direct disciple of Scribe; certainly +his book of the 'Flying Dutchman' has its points +of resemblance with the books Scribe invented for +'Robert the Devil,' and for the 'Prophet.' Even the +libretto of Wagner's 'Master-Singers of Nuremberg,' +altho it is far richer in tone than any of Scribe's librettos +for Auber, is constructed in accord with principles already +applied by the French playwright. In fact, the +influence of Scribe is patent thruout the long history of +opera in the nineteenth century; he was not only the +most prolific of librettists himself, but the operatic +formula he devised was borrowed by the best of the +librettists who followed him. Scribe was not the writer +of the books of 'Faust,' or of 'Roméo et Juliet,' or of +'Aïda,' but all these librettos were carefully built in +accord with the principles that he had practised for +half a century.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">Probably the average opera-goer is contemptuous of +the libretto, because he thinks it is an easy task to write +the mere words of an opera. To him, no doubt, the +opera lives by its music, and by its music alone. But +there is really no warrant for this uncomplimentary +attitude. An opera is a music-drama, and if it is to +achieve success, wide-spread and long-lasting, its drama +must be as effective as its music. Experience proves +that, so far from being as easy as it seems, the construction +of a satisfactory libretto is really a difficult feat, +to be achieved only by an expert in stage-craft. It is +no task to be confided to an amateur play-maker, to +a mere lyrist, ignorant of the art of the theater. First +of all, a satisfactory book must contain the skeleton of +a good play; and, second, this must be the special kind +of play which will not only inspire the musician, but +afford him a succession of special opportunities for the +exercise of his own art. The book of an opera must +be a good play; and more than once have we seen a +libretto deprived of its music and written out again +in prose for production in non-musical theaters. +'Carmen' is one example of this transformation. The +late Sir Henry Irving was so taken with Wagner's +'Flying Dutchman' that he had it made over into a +play for his own acting—'Vanderdecken.'</p> + +<p class="indent">The book of an opera must be a good play, and therefore +not a few successful operas have been composed +on plots which had already won approval as plays on +the stage. Indeed, many modern composers are so +convinced of the necessity that librettos shall be attractive +in themselves that they are continually borrowing +popular plays to deck with melody. 'Salomé' and +'Pelléas et Mélisande,' 'Madam Butterfly' and 'Cavalleria +Rusticana,' the 'Bohème' and the 'Tosca' +were all successful without music before they were set +to music to win a second success. The book of Verdi's +'Rigoletto' is based on Victor Hugo's drama, 'Le Roi +s'Amuse'; and oddly enough it was the operatic libretto, +rather than the original poetic drama, which +suggested the English play on the same theme, Tom +Taylor's blank-verse drama, the 'Fool's Revenge.' +Another of Verdi's librettos was borrowed from Hugo's +'Hermani', while his 'Traviata,' as we all know, is +taken from the play of the younger Dumas, long popular +in America as 'Camille.' Two of Verdi's latest +operas had Shaksperian themes, 'Otello' and 'Falstaff.'</p> + +<p class="indent">It is instructive to note, so an American musical +critic once asserted, that of all Gounod's dozen operas, +"the only two which have survived are the two which +are derived from Goethe's 'Faust' and from Shakspere's +'Romeo and Juliet'"; and he added a reminder +that in these operas the music owes its success "not +only to the aid derived from its associations with a +favorite play, but also in part to the fact that the +composer's creative imagination was fertilized by the +splendid opportunities for dramatic composition offered +by these plays. Gounod was moved by the joys +and woes of Margaret and of Juliet, and it is only under +the influence of deep feeling that such masterworks +can be created." When Gounod set to music a poetic +play by Goethe, and when Verdi set to music a group +of characters created by Shakspere, the composers +might well be inspired by the poets; and they were +thus aided to attain the utmost of which they are capable +as musicians.</p> + +<p class="indent">But it may be doubted whether any musician could +find any really helpful inspiration in dramas of vulgar +violence, such as the 'Tosca' of Sardou, and the +'Salomé' of Oscar Wilde; and it is extremely improbable +that the operas composed to such unworthy themes +will be able to achieve any durable popularity. In +plots of so coarse a character there is neither beauty +nor poetry, and the vogue of music-dramas having +subjects so debased is likely to be fleeting. On the +other hand, there was both poetry and beauty in the +original plays of 'Madam Butterfly' and 'Cavalleria +Rusticana,' and we need not be surprised if the operas +composed on these themes prove to have a long life in +the musical theaters. We may even go further and +suggest that there was a haunting and ethereal grace +about Maeterlinck's 'Pelléas et Mélisande' which +seemed almost to demand translation into the sister +art of music.</p> + +<p class="indent">The two most effective French comedies of the eighteenth +century, the 'Barber of Seville' and the 'Marriage +of Figaro,' supplied librettos, one for Rossini and +the other for Mozart. We may be sure that sooner +or later some other composer, Italian or American or +German, will be tempted to undertake an opera based +on Fulda's 'Two Sisters,' in which there could not help +being a very effective part for the prima donna. And +sooner or later again some musician with an appreciation +of humor and sentiment will be moved to take for +his libretto the comedy of 'Masks and Faces,' by Charles +Reade and Tom Taylor, generally known by the name +of its fascinating heroine, Peg Woffington. No doubt +there are not a few other modern plays in which composers +will discover musical possibilities.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">The key to an understanding of the importance of +the libretto lies in the term Wagner used to describe +the art-work of the future; he called this a "music-drama." +The exclusive lover of music is tempted to +look down on opera because its music is contaminated +with drama; and for a similar reason, the exclusive +lover of the drama is not attracted to opera because +the drama is there more or less sacrificed to the music. +But there are many opera-goers who best relish music +and the drama when they are presented in conjunction. +In a music-drama of the highest type, in Wagner's +'Tannhaüser,' for example, the music and the drama +are Siamese twins; they were brought forth at a single +birth. Each helps the other, and neither calls upon +the other for any undue sacrifice. They can be enjoyed +together better than they can be enjoyed apart, +since each depends upon the other; and united they +stand or fall.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. H. T. Finck was not overstating the case when +he insisted that the ideal opera is one in which the book +and the score are each of them of absorbing interest, +"and yet make a doubly deep impression when heard +together." The stories of 'Faust' and of 'Carmen' and +of 'Lohengrin' are delightful in themselves, merely +to read; and a musical expert can find pleasure in +playing the music from them on the piano. "Yet +how much more effective they are when we hear and +see music and play together on the stage." And then +the same writer goes on to point out that the best +"libretto is one which tells its story to the eye," as in +the case of 'Carmen,' for example. "No one with eyes +to see can fail, for instance, to follow the career of +'Carmen,' from her flirtation with the young officer +to the scene before the bullring where he stabs her."</p> + +<p class="indent">It was an acute French dramatic critic who once +asserted that "the skeleton of every good play is a +pantomime," and the assertion is more emphatically +true when applied to the skeleton of a libretto. Indeed, +as the words are rarely heard distinctly, and as +they are often in a foreign language, there is double +need of a story so clear and so straightforward that it +can be caught by the eye alone from the actions and +gestures and facial expressions of the performers without +the aid of the actual words. But the inventing +and the constructing of a plot of this seemingly simple +effectiveness is a task of extraordinary difficulty—if +we may judge by the infrequency of its achievement. +And undoubtedly it is this difficulty which has led so +many musicians to compose their scores to books only +slightly altered from plays which had already an attested +popularity in the theater. By so doing it has +seemed to them that they were minimizing the risk of +finding their music handicapped by an ineffective story. +The danger in this case lies in the temptation to set +to music any play which may chance to be successful +without considering sufficiently whether it is really +worthy of the composer's labor.</p> + +<p class="indent">There is another disadvantage also in this snatching at +successful plays to serve as opera-librettos. Most successful +plays nowadays deal with modern life, and they +may owe much of their success to the skill with which +the dramatist has been able to seize the external aspects +of reality. Now, it is an interesting question whether +a realistic piece of this sort can ever supply an entirely +satisfactory book for an opera, since music is emotional +and idealizing. To many persons the opera seems +singularly unreal, strangely remote from actual life. +Such persons are shocked that Tristan, for instance, +should sing for half an hour when he is dying from physical +weakness. Tolstoy sided with those who take this +attitude, and he had no difficulty in showing up the +absurd unreality of an operatic performance, if one +insists upon applying to it the standard of our ordinary +existence, since we do not burst into song ordinarily +to express our every-day desires. Of course, there +would be no great difficulty in showing up the absurd +unreality of every other art, if the same standard is +insisted upon. No art can justify itself for a moment +unless we are willing to admit the essential conventions +which alone permit it to exist.</p> + +<p class="indent">Tolstoy might as well have pointed out that sculpture +is ridiculous, since no human being is ever all of +one color, body and clothes, as a statue must be, +whether it is made of marble or of bronze. He could +have declared that painting is equally untrue to the +mere facts of life, since it represents nature absolutely +without motion, as when it depicts a field of waving +corn which does not really wave but stands fixed forever. +If Tolstoy or any one else refuses to accept the +conventions of any art, there is no possible reply, except +to make it clear to him that he is thereby depriving +himself of the delight which that art can give. +A departure from the mere fact underlies every art; +and it is only because of that departure that the art +exists. By convention, that is to say, by tacit agreement +between the artist and the public, the artist is +allowed to deny certain of the facts of life in order to +provide the public with the specific pleasure which +only his art can afford.</p> + +<p class="indent">In the Shaksperian drama the underlying convention +is that the persons of the play belong to a race +of people who always express themselves poetically in +English blank verse. In opera this necessary agreement +requires us to concede the existence of men and women +to whom song is the natural means of communicating +all their sentiments and all their thoughts. If we are +willing to accept this implied contract, then there is no +absurdity in Tristan's singing with his dying breath, +since he belongs to a race of creatures who have no +other method of speech. If we are unwilling to be +parties to this agreement, if we deny the existence of +any such creatures, then there is nothing for us to do +but to keep out of the opera-house. It was this convention +which Tolstoy rejected, and by this rejection +he refused the enjoyment which the opera can give to +those who are satisfied to accept its conditions.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">But there is no denying that the imperative operatic +convention requires us to admit a very violent departure +from the facts of life as we all know them. We +are now so accustomed to blank verse in Shakspere's +plays, tragic and comic, that we accept it almost +without noticing it. By long habit, we have come to +consider blank verse as "natural" in a poetic play, +especially when that play sets before us heroic figures +of the remote past. And here is the danger in the +operas which have been composed on books made out +of modern popular pieces, more or less realistic in their +atmosphere. The "naturalness" of the men and +women in these plays of to-day tends to draw attention +to the "unnaturalness" of their customary use of +song to express their emotions.</p> + +<p class="indent">This danger Wagner skilfully avoided in his later +music-dramas derived from the Nibelungen myth. +He set before us shadowy creatures involved in strange +intrigues far back in the legendary past and wholly +devoid of any modern or realistic suggestion. As Tristan +and Siegfried and Brunhild are all idealized persons, +taking part in poetic fictions, we are willing enough +to accept their exclusive use of song; and we recognize +at once the artistic inconsistency of Tolstoy's protest. +To beings so remote from our daily life, from our ordinary +experience, the standard of fact cannot fairly +be applied. We acknowledge the full right of such +creatures to dwell eternally in the land of song alone.</p> + +<p class="indent">But we are perhaps a little less willing to make this +acknowledgment when we find the composer asking +us to believe that men and women of our own time and +of our own country, the characters of the 'Girl of the +Golden West,' for example, or even some of those of +'Madam Butterfly,' should eschew the plain prose of +ordinary speech and insist on discussing their love-affairs +in the obviously "unnatural" medium of song. +That is to say, there is a striking incongruity between +musical expression and the realistic characters of most +modern plays. We enjoy the opera partly because it +is not "natural," not "real," in the ordinary meaning +of these words; and if the plot and the people are +aggressively modern and matter-of-fact, our attention +is necessarily called to the "unnaturalness" of their +incessant vocalization. A certain remoteness from real +life, even a certain vaporous intangibility as to time +and place, seem to be a helpful element in our enjoyment +of a music-drama.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps it is due to this remoteness, to this unreality, +that the opera-goer is willing enough to have a story +end unhappily, altho the playgoer is now likely to be +painfully affected by a tragic ending. Whatever the +reason, it is a fact that most of our popular plays end +merrily in a church, while most of our popular operas +end sadly in a churchyard. The calculation has been +made that out of twoscore operas sung in New York +at the two opera-houses a season or so ago, only half +a dozen ended happily; the large majority of them culminated +in the death of the hero or of the heroine or +of both together. Music is a sister of poetry, and we +need not wonder that the musicians are likely to prefer +the opera-book which has a tragic catastrophe.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1910.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">X<br /> +THE POETRY OF THE DANCE<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE POETRY OF THE DANCE<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Greek of old was wise in his generation and poetic +as was his habit, when he imagined nine muses and +when he feigned that each of them was to watch over +a separate art, and to inspire those who might strive +to excel in this. It is true that nowadays we cannot +help feeling that the sister-muses of Tragedy and of +Comedy have been a little derelict to their duty, if +they are really responsible for all the plays of our time, +not a few of which seem to be sadly lacking in inspiration. +But of late another of the sacred nine appears +to have aroused herself out of her lethargy and to have +awakened to a fuller realization of her opportunity. +At least, there are many evidences now visible in the +United States that Terpsichore has been attending +strictly to business, and sending out travelers with +many diverse specimens of her wares. Indeed, there +has probably never been a time when so many different +varieties of the dance have been on exhibition before +the American people. It was once remarked by a +shrewd observer that there were only three kinds of +dancing, the graceful, the ungraceful, and the disgraceful. +And in the United States we have had presented +to us in the past few years specimens of all three +kinds.</p> + +<p class="indent">In the middle of September, 1910, the Playground +Association of America held an outdoor session in +Van Cortlandt Park, in New York, and three hundred +persons, mostly children, took part in the exercises. +The most interesting feature of the program was a +series of national folk-dances executed by boys and +girls from the public schools. New York is the huge +melting-pot where all nationalities of Europe meet to +be fused into Americans; and these children were, +most of them, executing the dances of the countries +their parents had come from—dances for which they +had, therefore, a traditional and hereditary predilection. +German girls in the costumes of the Rhine, gave +a peasant dance to the simple tune of 'Ach, du lieber +Augustin'; and colored children, in perfect rhythm, +moved thru a reel to the music of the 'Suwanee River.' +The wild Hungarian <i>czardas</i> was carried off with a +splendid swing by men and women born on the banks +of the Danube; and an Irish quartet displayed their +agility and their precision of time-keeping in a four-handed +country-dance. And at the end, all the participants +in the several national dances took part in a +general harvest-dance. This was an effective spectacle, +possible only here in America, where representatives +of many peoples come to mingle, even tho each +of them retains a sentiment of loyalty to the old home +it has left forever.</p> + +<p class="indent">Here in the open air, in a public park, at this meeting +of the Playground Association, there was this joyous +and wholesome revival of the folk-dances of a dozen +different races; and at the same time, in one or another +of half a score of the theaters of the great city, ill-trained +and half-clothed women were vainly capering +about the stage in doubtful efforts to suggest the Oriental +contortions of Salomé. These were, most of them, +consciously and deliberately inartistic, appealing directly +to the baser instincts and to the lower curiosities +of man. Nothing could have been in sharper contrast +with the folk-dances of the foreign-born children, +which were gay and healthy and spontaneous. The +exercises in the park were examples of the kind of +dancing which cannot help being graceful, while most +of the performances in the theaters were specimens of +the kind of dancing which can fairly be described as +ungraceful, even if they cannot all of them be dismissed +as disgraceful. While the folk-dances of the +children would fill the heart with a pure delight, the +sorry spectacle presented in some of the theaters was +not to be witnessed without a certain loss of self-respect; +it recalled the gross pantomimes of the later Roman +theater, righteously denounced by the Fathers of the +Church.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet it is only just to record that in other theaters +there were then other spectacles to make amends for +these sorry exhibitions. There were several interesting +attempts to recall the severe beauty of Greek dancing. +Lithe figures with free and floating draperies +sought to recapture the irreclaimable charm that lives +for us in the lovely Tanagra figurines, or that flits elusively +around the sides of Attic vases. Ambitious efforts +were made by one dancer and by another to translate +into step and posture and gesture the intangible +poetry of Shelley and the haunting music of Mendelssohn. +Unfortunately, the result was rarely commensurate +with the effort; and, in fact, a complete success +was not possible. The muse of dancing has no right +to endeavor to annex the territory of her sisters, who +are charged with the care of poetry and music. The +several arts are strongest when each remains strictly +within its own limitations. For example, program-music +is not yet assured of its welcome, and program-dancing +is far more difficult to follow with complete +comprehension.</p> + +<p class="indent">And there was a further defect in these efforts to revive +the classic dances and to devise more modern +interpretations of poetry and music. Success, if possible +at all, would be possible only to a highly trained +performer, mistress of every device of the terpsichorean +art and elaborately schooled in pantomimic +expression. Now, it is not unfair to say that no one +of the performers of these so-called classic dances had +undergone this severe schooling. No one of them had +the lightness, the ease, the perfect mastery of method, +the floating grace of the true dancer, who has been +taught from childhood, until all the tricks of the craft +are second nature. Without this arduous training any +one who attempts an ambitious display can scarcely +fail to reveal instantly the lamentable fact that she is +not mistress of the technic of the art she has undertaken +to practise. She does not know how to get her effects; +she does not even know what effects are possible. +She is almost certain to appear amateurish, and she +is likely to seem awkward also, not to say ungainly. +As Pope put it tersely: "Those move easiest who have +learned to dance."</p> + +<p class="indent">These well-meant attempts to link dancing with +poetry and music could be entirely satisfactory only +to those who have given little consideration to dancing +as an art, or who have small opportunity to see any +really beautiful dancing. There is no wonder that +any effort to spiritualize dancing, to give it a soul, to +elevate it to the lofty level of the lyric, should be welcomed +by those who have been disgusted by the ugly +and vulgar high-kicking of the so-called pony ballets. +The acrobatic contortions of these athletic performers +were wholly without charm, as unalluring as they were +violent. And equally unacceptable are the frequent +exhibitions of toe-dancing, sheer gymnastic feats, difficult, +indeed, but essentially uninteresting. Of a truth, +these pony ballets on the one hand, and these toe-dancers +on the other, are exponents of eccentricity. +What they accomplish lies outside the true art of dancing. +It is not inspired by Terpsichore, and the saddened +muse must veil her face when she is forced to +behold these crude exhibitions of misplaced energy.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">The true art of dancing is entirely free from all apparent +effort. No matter how difficult may be the +feat that is accomplished, it must seem easy. Every +gesture must be expressive, every movement must be +beautiful, every step must have ease and lightness and +grace. Forty years ago and more, the 'Black Crook' +brought to America three or four dancers trained in the +best schools of Europe—Bonfanti and Betty Rigl, +Rita Sangalli and Morlacchi. One of this quartet, +Rita Sangalli, was afterward the chief dancer at the +Paris Opéra, where she was followed in time by Rosita +Mauri, a dancer who added beauty of face and of form +to a masterly accomplishment. They were all gifted +pantomimists; they had all of them the perfection of +technic; they were all of them capable of the most +varied difficulties of the art; and they all of them vanquished +these difficulties with unobtrusive ease. They +had attained to that perfection of art, when the art +itself is hidden, and when only the consummate result +is visible. Each of them had absolute certainty of +execution, and each of them could float across the +stage the embodiment of grace, exquisite in its ethereal +delicacy.</p> + +<p class="indent">For those whose memories cannot recall the haunting +remembrance of the days that are gone there is abundant +compensation in the opportunity which has been +afforded of late to behold the dancing of Mlle. Genée +and of Mlle. Pavlova. They are, at least, the equal +of any of their predecessors, and it may be doubted +whether Taglioni or Fanny Elssler surpassed them in +mastery. They are the perfection of effortless ease; +altho they suggest only the lightness of the butterfly, +they have the steel strength of the gymnast. Behind +their marvelous and bewildering accomplishment there +is a native gift, rich and full; and there is also the +utmost rigor and perseverance in training. What they +are able to do with seeming spontaneity and with apparent +freedom is the result of indefatigable industry +and of merciless labor.</p> + +<p class="indent">But tho this schooling sustains them, it is never +paraded—indeed, it is scarcely perceived. There is +not the faintest suggestion of hard work about their +performances; there is nothing that hints at effort; +their art is able to conceal itself absolutely, and to +delight us only with the perfect result of their long +apprenticeship. Capable of the most obstinate feats of +strength and of agility, Mlle. Genée and Mlle. Pavlova +never "show off"; they are never guilty of parading a +difficulty for its own sake, and their conquest of technical +obstacles serves only to support and intensify +the continuous suggestion of aerial elevation and of +ineffable lightness. It is to be noted, also, that as they +scorn the task of the mere gymnast, they do not wear +the scant costume of the acrobat; they are enveloped +in ample draperies, which fall into lines of beauty with +every movement.</p> + +<p class="indent">Nothing more exquisite than their dancing has ever +been seen on the American stage. Theirs is the dancing +which is graceful—which, indeed, is grace itself. +Here is the art at its utmost possibility, purged of all +its dross. When they are floating effortless thru space +we cannot help recalling the possibly apocryphal anecdote +which records the visit of Emerson and Margaret +Fuller to the theater to see Fanny Elssler. They gazed +with increasing delight, until at last Margaret Fuller +could not contain her enthusiasm. She turned and +said: "Ralph, this is poetry!" To which the philosopher +is said to have responded: "Margaret, this is +religion!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Perfection is always rare, and there is now only one +Mlle. Genée, and only one Mlle. Pavlova, as there was +only one Rosita Mauri a quarter of a century ago. +It is a pity that the Danish dancer has had to appear +here in an ordinary musical show and not in a framework +more worthy of her and of her art, and better +fitted to display it. She has revealed herself only in +two or three <i>entrées de ballet</i>, as the French term them—incidental +dances; and she has not yet been seen here +in a <i>ballet d'action</i>, a complete story told in pantomime. +It was the poet, François Coppée, who devised the plot +of the 'Korrigane' for Rosita Mauri; and he had had +Théophile Gautier as a predecessor in the preparation +of a ballet-libretto. All those who are interested in +every manifestation of the art of the drama, must find +pleasure in the <i>ballet d'action</i>, with its adroit commingling +of dance and pantomime; it gives a delight +possible to no other form of the drama; and at its +best it is more closely akin to pure poetry. Being her +own manager, Mlle. Pavlova has been seen in a series +of ballets more appropriate to her extraordinary gifts +than those in which Mlle. Genée has been permitted to +appear.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">There was one scene of the 'Source,' a ballet popular +at the Opéra in Paris during the exhibition of 1867, +which must linger in the memory of all who had the +good fortune to behold it—a scene so beautiful that it +was borrowed for the 'White Fawn,' which was the +successor of the 'Black Crook' here in the United +States. It represented a silvery glade in the lone forest, +with a mysterious lake, on the surface of which +the spirits of the springtime came forth to disport +themselves. It was a vision of airy grace and of haunting +legend; and it is only one example of the poetic +possibilities of the contribution of dance and pantomime +in a coherent story. It may be well to recall +the fact that the plots of these <i>ballets d'action</i> are often +strong enough to enable them to serve as the basis of +a libretto for an opera. It was a ballet of Scribe's, for +example, which was taken for the book of the 'Somnambula'; +and the book of the favorite opera 'Martha' +began its existence as a libretto for a ballet.</p> + +<p class="indent">While the <i>ballet d'action</i> affords the fullest opportunity +for the perfect art of dancers like Rosita Mauri +and Adeline Genée and Anna Pavlova, there are other +forms not to be despised. Twenty-five years ago the +Italian Marenco brought out his stupendous 'Excelsior,' +which was taken from Italy to Paris, then to +New York, and finally to London. 'Excelsior' was an +allegorical ballet; it represented the conflict of light +and darkness, of progress and superstition, of invention +and reaction. It filled a whole evening with spectacle +and glitter and movement. It lacked the poetic simplicity +of the 'Source' and of the 'Korrigane'; but it +had other qualities of its own. What set it apart from +all the ballets that had gone before was the subordination +of the individual terpsichorean artist to the main +body. Marenco employed the best dancers to be found +in Italy, no doubt, but he did not rely on them so +much as on the intricate and ingenious handling of +the crowds of lesser dancers, by whom they were surrounded.</p> + +<p class="indent">The novelty of 'Excelsior' and of the two or three +gigantic Italian spectacles which were patterned upon +it—'Messalina' and 'Sieba'—lay in the maneuvering +of the masses, in the extraordinary skill with which +squadrons of figures were made to charge across the +stage and combine and melt into one another most +unexpectedly and most delightfully. The whole stage +was a blaze of artfully contrasted colors, and it was +filled with a riot of motion and of glitter. And Marenco +made use of male dancers far more abundantly than +any of his predecessors, utilizing them to wear the +more somber colors, to suggest a sterner vigor, and to +emphasize a bolder contrast. He was responsible also +for another novelty, often employed by others since; +he increased the height of his swerving lines of dancers, +now and again, by mounting some of the figures on +stands, and by putting revolving globes and iridescent +banners into the hands of the men in the background.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is the method of Marenco in 'Excelsior' which has +been followed in the often pleasing ballets of the Hippodrome +in New York. Really good soloists are now +very scarce, even in Milan and in Vienna, long the +nurseries of the ballet; and there seem to be none too +many even in Petrograd, which has preserved and improved +upon the traditions of Paris and Milan. And +in the absence of accomplished soloists, the deviser of +the ballets at the Hippodrome has been compelled to +get along without them as best he could. He has been +forced to rely on the maneuvering of masses of girls, +possessed of only a rudimentary instruction in the elements +of the terpsichorean art. In other words, he +has had to make up in quantity for the absence of +quality. But he has at his disposition an immense +stage, across which he could set his squadrons marching +and gliding and glittering. He could not count on +the skill of his principals who were not expert enough +to demand the attention of the spectators; but he +could seek striking effects of light and color in the costumes, +as he moved his masses to and fro and as he +swung them together. If only there had been a little +better training for the more prominent performers, +the 'Four Seasons' would have been a most artistic +entertainment, in spite of the absence of any single +dancer of real distinction.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">The dearth of remarkable dancers is due to the inexorable +fact that dancing is the most arduous of all +the arts; its technic is the most difficult to acquire. +Indeed, this technic can be acquired only in early youth, +when the muscles are flexible and when they can be +supplied at will. It is early in her teens that a dancer +must begin her training if she aspires to eminence in +the art. This training is very severe, and it must +never be relaxed. Rubinstein used to say that if he +omitted his practise for a single day he noticed it in +his playing; if he omitted it two days his enemies +found it out; and if he omitted it three days even his +friends discovered it. The apprentice dancer can never +omit a single day of hard and uninteresting toil. Incessant +application, during all the long years of youth, +is the price the ambitious beginner must pay for the +mastery of her art. She can have no vacations; she +can have few relaxations; she must keep herself constantly +in training; she must be prepared to surrender +many of the things which make life worth living. +And it is no wonder that so few have the courage to +persevere, and that there is only one Rosita Mauri, +only one Adeline Genée, and only one Anna Pavlova +in a quarter of a century. It is no wonder that the +inventor of terpsichorean spectacles nowadays finds +himself compelled to get along as best he can without +a satisfactory soloist and to rely rather on his handling +of a mass of inadequately trained dancers.</p> + +<p class="indent">But even if the highly accomplished soloist, absolute +mistress of all the possibilities of the art, is very rare, +there are certain forms of dancing which do not demand +this ultimate skill and which call for little more +than grace and ease and charm, combined with a +knowledge of the simpler steps. For example, the +Spanish Carmencita, whose portraits by Mr. Sargent +and by Mr. Chase now hang in the Luxembourg in +Paris and in the Metropolitan Museum in New York—Carmencita +was not a skilful dancer; she had undergone +no inexorable schooling; she glided thru only a +few elementary movements. But she made no effort; +she did not pretend to what was not in her power; +she was simple and unaffected. Her charm was not +in her singing or in her dancing; it was in her personality, +in the alluring and exotic suggestion of her +individuality.</p> + +<p class="indent">Nor could anybody venture to assert that Miss Kate +Vaughan and Miss Letty Lind were dancers in the +same class with Mauri, Genée, and Pavlova; but then +they did not pretend to be. They knew only a few +steps of obvious simplicity, and they displayed no unexpected +dexterity. But the skirt-dance as they performed +it was a memory of delight, with its grace and +its ease, with its perfect rhythm and with the swish of +its clinging draperies. It had a fascination of its own, +quite different from the fascination of the more poetic +and ethereal ballet-dancing of Rita Sangalli and Rosita +Mauri. It was not of the stage exactly, but almost of +the drawing-room. It gave the same pleasure which +we felt when we were privileged to behold a court +minuet led by the late Mrs. G. H. Gilbert, who had +been a dancer in the days of her youth. There is one +perfect beauty of the best ballet-dancing and there +are other beauties of different kinds in the skirt-dancing +of the two Englishwomen and in the languorous swaying +of the Spanish gipsy.</p> + +<p class="indent">Beauty of yet another order there was in an exhibition +which was called a dance, perhaps because there +was no other word for it, but which demanded no skill +with the feet and which necessitated rather strength +in the arms. This was the luminous dance of Miss +Loie Fuller, when she swirled voluminous and prolonged +draperies in lights that came from above and +from below, and from both sides—lights that changed +by exquisite gradations from one tint to another, the +figure of the dancer spinning around, now slowly and +now swiftly, while her arms weaved fantastic circles +in the air, revealing unexpected combinations of color, +controlled by perfect taste. This may not have been +dancing, by any strict definition of the word, but it +was decorative, artistic, imaginative, and inexpressibly +beautiful. It supplied a glimpse of unsuspected delight; +and probably Terpsichore would not disdain to +claim it for her own, however vigorously she might repel +the suggestion that she had any responsibility for +the violence of the toe-dances, for the vulgarity of the +pony ballet, or for the ungainly caperings which pretend +to recapture the free movements of the Greeks.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1910-1915)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">XI<br /> +THE PRINCIPLES OF PANTOMIME<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE PRINCIPLES OF PANTOMIME<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> his suggestive study of ancient and modern drama, +M. Émile Faguet dwells on the fact that the drama is +the only one of the arts which can employ to advantage +the aid of all the other arts. The muses of tragedy +and comedy can borrow narrative from the muse of +epic poetry and song from the muse of lyric poetry. +They can avail themselves of oratory, music, and +dancing. They can profit by the assistance of the +architect, the sculptor, and the painter. They can +draw on the co-operation of all the other arts without +ceasing to be themselves and without losing any of +their essential qualities. This was seen clearly by +Wagner, who insisted that his music-dramas were +really the art-work of the future, in that they were the +result of a combination of all the arts. Quite possibly +the Greeks had the same idea, since Athenian tragedy +has many points of similarity to Wagner's music-drama; +it had epic passages and a lyric chorus set to +music; it called for stately dancing against an architectural +background.</p> + +<p class="indent">But altho the muses of the drama may invoke the +help of their seven sisters, they need not make this +appeal unless they choose. They can give their performances +on a bare platform, or in the open air, and +thus get along without painting and architecture. +They can disdain the support of song and dance and +music. They can concentrate all their effort upon +themselves and provide a play which is a play and +nothing else. And this is what Ibsen has done in his +somber social-dramas. 'Ghosts,' for example, is independent +of anything extraneous to the drama. It is +a play, only a play, and nothing more than a play.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet it is possible to reduce the drama to an even +barer state than we find in Ibsen's gloomy tragedy in +prose. Ibsen's characters speak; they reveal themselves +in speech; and it is by words that they carry +on the story. A story can be presented on the stage, +however, without the use of words, without the aid of +the human voice, by the employment of gesture only, +by pure pantomime. No doubt, the drama makes a +great sacrifice when it decides to do without that potent +instrument of emotional appeal, the human voice; and +yet it can find its profit, now and then, in this self-imposed +deprivation. Certain stories there are, not +many, and all of them necessarily simplified and made +very clear, which gain by being bereft of the spoken +word and by being presented only in the pantomime. +And these stories, simple as they must be, if they are +to be apprehended by sight alone without the aid of +sound, are, nevertheless, capable of supporting an +actual play with all the absolutely necessary elements +of a drama.</p> + +<p class="indent">In his interesting and illuminating volume on the +'Theory of the Theater,' Mr. Clayton Hamilton has a +carefully considered definition of a play. He asserts +that "a play is a story devised to be presented by actors +on a stage before an audience." Perhaps it might +be possible to amend this by saying "in a theater," +instead of "on a stage," since we are now pretty certain +that there was no stage in the Greek theater when +Sophocles was writing for it. But this is but a trifling +correction, and the definition as a whole is excellent. +It includes every possible kind of dramatic entertainment, +Greek tragedy and Roman comedy, medieval +farce and modern melodrama, the music-drama of +Wagner and the problem-play of Ibsen, the summer +song-show and the college boy's burlesque. Obviously +it includes the wordless play, the story devised to be +presented on a stage and before an audience by actors +who use gesture only and who do not speak.</p> + +<p class="indent">In forgoing the aid of words the drama is only reducing +itself to its absolutely necessary elements—a +story, and a story which can be shown in action. It +is not quite true that the skeleton of a good play is +always a pantomime, since there are plays the plot +of which cannot be conveyed to the audience except +by actual speech. Yet some of the greatest plays have +plots so transparent that the story is clear, even if we +fail to hear what the actors are saying. It has been +asserted that if 'Hamlet,' for example, were to be performed +in a deaf-and-dumb asylum, the inmates would +be able to understand it and to enjoy it. They would +be deprived of the wonderful beauty of Shakspere's +verse, no doubt, and they would scarcely be able even +to guess at the deeper significance of the philosophy +which enriches the tragedy; but the story would unroll +itself clearly before their eyes so that they could +follow the succession of scenes with adequate understanding.</p> + +<p class="indent">With his customary shrewdness and his usual gift +of piercing to the center of what he was engaged in +analyzing, Aristotle more than four thousand years +ago saw the necessity of a neatly articulated plot. "If +you string together a set of speeches," he said, "expressive +of character and well finished in point of diction +and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic +effect nearly so well as with a play, which, however +deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically +constructed incidents." No broader statement +than this could be made as to the all-importance of the +story itself—and pantomime is a story and nothing +else, a story capable of being translated by the actions +of the performers, without the aid of speech. Nor +need we suppose that a play without words is necessarily +devoid of poetry. There may be poetry in the +"set of speeches expressive of character and well finished +in point of thought and diction"; but there may +be poetry also in the theme itself, in the actual story. +'Romeo and Juliet,' for example, is fundamentally +poetic in its theme, and it retains its poetic quality +even when it is made to serve as the libretto of an opera, +as it would also retain this if it should be stripped +bare to be presented in pantomime.</p> + +<p class="indent">In a recent work on the 'Essentials of Poetry,' Professor +William A. Neilson has made this clear: "Many +a drama is a genuine poetic creation, altho it may be +simple to the point of baldness in diction and exhibit +the fundamental qualities of poetry only in the characterization +and in the significance, proportion, and +verisimilitude of the plot." That is to say, the drama +can use two kinds of poetry, that which is internal and +contained in the plot, and that which is external and +confined to the language. It can employ</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i4">jewels five-words long,</span><br /> +<span class="i0">That on the stretched forefinger of all Time</span><br /> +<span class="i0">Sparkle forever.</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">But it can also attain poetry without the use of +superb and sonorous phrases and solely by its choice +of theme. This is what the poets have often felt, and +as a result French lyrists, like Théophile Gautier and +François Coppée, have not disdained to compose librettos +for pantomimic ballets, 'Giselle' and the 'Korrigane.' +One of the most successful of the recent +Russian ballets was simply a representation of Gautier's +poetic fantasy, 'One of Cleopatra's Nights,'</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps because the pantomime contains only the +essential element of the drama—action—it has always +been a popular form of play; and it appears very +early in the history of the theater. Indeed, it seems +to be the sole type of play achievable by primitive man—if +we may judge from observations made among +savages who are still in the earlier periods of social development. +Gesture precedes speech, and a pantomime +was possible even before a vocabulary was developed. +In the Aleutian Islands, for example, the +pantomime is the only form of play known. One of +the little plays of the islanders has been described. +It was acted by two performers only, one representing +a hunter, and the other a bird. The hunter hesitates +but finally kills the bird with an arrow; then he is +seized with regret that he has slain so noble a bird; +whereupon the bird revives and turns into a beautiful +woman who falls into the hunter's arms. This is the +simplest of stories, but it lends itself to effective acting; +it is capable of being interpreted adequately by +means of gesture alone; and it is just the kind of play +which would appeal to an Aleutian audience, being +wholly within their experience and their apprehension.</p> + +<p class="indent">Pantomime flourished in Rome and in Constantinople +in the sorry years of the decline and fall of the +empire; and it was then low and lascivious. A great +part of the fierce hostility to the theater displayed by +the Fathers of the Christian Church was due to the +fact that the only drama of which they had any knowledge +was pantomime of a most objectionable character, +offensive in theme and even more offensive in presentation. +With the conversion of the empire to Christianity, +pantomimes of this type, appealing only to +lewd fellows of the baser sort, was very properly prohibited. +But pantomime of another type sprang up +in the Middle Ages in the Christian churches to exemplify +and to make visible to the ignorant congregations, +certain episodes of sacred history. In the Renascence +dumb-shows were represented before monarchs, at their +weddings and at their stately entrances into loyal +cities. And dumb-shows were often employed in the +Elizabethan stage, sometimes as prologs to the several +acts, as in 'Gorboduc,' for example, and sometimes +within the play itself, as in 'Hamlet.'</p> + +<p class="indent">In the eighteenth century pantomime had a double +revival, in France and in England. In France, Noverre +elevated the <i>ballet d'action</i>, that is to say, the story +told in pantomime and adorned with dances. Sometimes +these <i>ballets d'action</i> were in several acts, relying +for interest on the simple yet ingenious plot, and only +decorated, so to speak, with occasional dances. From +Noverre and from France the tradition of the pantomime +with interludes of dancing, spread at first to +Italy and Austria, and later to Russia.</p> + +<p class="indent">In England the development of pantomime was +upon different lines, due to the influence of the Italian +comedy-of-masks, with its unchanging figures of Pantaleone, +Columbina, and Arlecchino. These figures +were still further simplified; and to Pantaloon, Columbine, +and Harlequin there was added the characteristically +British figure of the Clown. The most famous +impersonator of the clown was Grimaldi, whose memoirs +were edited by Charles Dickens. The mantle +of Grimaldi fell upon an American, G. L. Fox, whose +greatest triumph, in the late sixties, was in a pantomime +called 'Humpty-Dumpty'—the riming prolog +of which was written by A. Oakey Hall (then Tweed's +mayor of New York). G. L. Fox and his brother, C. +K. Fox (who was the inventor of the comic scenes), had +been preceded in America by a family of French pantomimists +known as the Ravels; and they were followed +by the family known as the Hanlon-Lees, who had +originally been acrobats, and who appeared in a French +play, in which the other characters spoke while the +Hanlon-Lees expressed themselves only in gesture. +Here again Scribe had been before them, with his libretto +for the opera of 'Masaniello,' in which there is a +principal part for a pantomimic actress, Fenella. And +when the great French actor, Frédéric Lemaître, had +lost his voice by overstrain, Dennery wrote a play for +him, the 'Old Corporal,' in which he appeared as a +soldier of Napoleon's Old Guard, who had been stricken +dumb during the retreat from Russia.</p> + +<p class="indent">This exploit of Frédéric Lemaître's is not as extraordinary +as it seems. A truly accomplished actor +ought to be able to forgo the aid of speech. Even in +our modern plays gesture is more significant than +speech. To place the finger on the lips is more effective +than to say "Hush!" The tendency of the modern +drama on our amply lighted picture-frame stage is +to subordinate the mere words to the expressive action. +In Mr. Gillette's 'Secret Service,' for example, the impression +is sometimes made rather by gesture than by +speech; and a large portion of the most effective scene, +that where the hero is wounded while he is sending a +telegraph message, is presented in pantomime with +little assistance from actual dialog. Similar effects +are to be found in many of Mr. Belasco's plays, especially +in the 'Darling of the Gods.' In all good acting +the gesture precedes the word; and often the gesture +makes the word itself unnecessary, because it has succeeded +in conveying the impression and in making +the full effect by itself, so that the spoken phrase lags +superfluous.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">In France in the final decades of the nineteenth +century there was a wide-spread revival of interest in +pantomime, where the art had been dormant since the +days of Deburau. A society was formed for its encouragement, +and a host of little wordless plays was +the result. The most ambitious effort was the 'Enfant +Prodigue,' a genuine comedy in three acts, by M. Michel +Carré, with music by M. Alfred Wormser. This wordless +play on the perennially attractive theme of the +Prodigal Son proved to be the modern masterpiece of +pantomime. It was limpidly clear in its story; it was +ingeniously put together in its plot; it combined humor +and pathos; and it was devoid of the acrobatic features +and of the slap-stick fun which have generally been +considered the inevitable accessories of pantomime. +We had brought before us the dull and prim home life +of old Pierrot and of his wife, and we were made to +behold the impatience of young Pierrot with this prim +dullness. We saw the Prodigal rob his father and go +forth in search of pleasure. In the second act we were +witnesses of the sad results of the pleasure young +Pierrot had sought superabundantly, and we discovered +that he had spent his money and that he was +capable of descending to marked cards to win more +gold to satisfy the caprices of the woman who had +fascinated him. We saw his return with his ill-gotten +gains after his charmer had been tempted to go off with +a wealthier man. And in the third act we were taken +back to the home of his broken-hearted parents; and +we witnessed the Prodigal's return, poverty-stricken, +disenchanted, and reformed. His mother takes him +to her arms; but his father is obdurate. Then we +hear the fife and drum afar off, and young Pierrot, if +he has lived unworthily for himself, can at least die +worthily for his country. So the old father relents and +bestows his blessing on the erring son as the boy goes +forth to war.</p> + +<p class="indent">The art of the 'Enfant Prodigue' was at once delicate +and firm; and its popularity was not confined to +France. Here was a true play, moving to tears as well +as to laughter, holding the interest by a human story +of universal appeal. It was taken across the Channel +from Paris to London, and from London it was taken +across the ocean to New York. Augustin Daly, always +on the alert for novelty, brought it out at his own +theater, first with his own company, and then a little +later with a French company. Excellent as was the +performance of the French company, two characters +were as well sustained by the American company. +Charles Leclercq appeared as old Pierrot, and he had +had in his youth experience in pantomime in England. +Mrs. G. H. Gilbert appeared as Mrs. Pierrot, and in +her youth she had been a ballet dancer, and had taken +part in pantomimes. To these two performers the +principles of the art of gesture were perfectly familiar; +and it was a constant delight to follow the dexterity +and the adequacy of their gestures. But Miss Rehan, +who appeared as the Prodigal Son, had had no pantomimic +experience, and she was not able to acquire the +art offhand. In dozens of dramas she had revealed +herself as an actress, not only of great personal charm, +but also of great histrionic skill. Merely as an actress +she was incomparably superior to the impersonator of +the Prodigal Son in the French company; but merely +as a pantomimist she was inferior. More than once +she appeared as if she wanted to speak, failing because +she was deprived of voice. Her gestures seemed like +afterthoughts; they lacked spontaneity and inevitability. +She suggested at moments that she was a poor +dumb boy gasping for words.</p> + +<p class="indent">Now, the convention underlying pantomime is that +we are beholding a story carried on by a race of beings +whose natural method of communicating information +and ideas is gesture—just as the convention of opera +is that we are beholding a story carried on by a race +of beings whose natural method of communicating information +and ideas is song. No such races of beings +ever existed; but we must admit the existence of such +races as a condition precedent to our enjoyment of +pantomime and of opera. The spectators must accept +the art as it is, and the performers must refrain from +any suggestion that they would speak if they could. +This underlying convention was viciously violated in +"Professor" Reinhardt's overpraised 'Sumurun,' when +the Hunchback gives a shriek of horror as he sees the +woman he loves in the arms of another man. It is +viciously violated again in the same play when Sumurun +and two attendants are heard singing. If Sumurun +can sing, why can she not speak? If the Hunchback +can shriek and sob audibly, why is he ordinarily reduced +to mere gesture?</p> + +<p class="indent">'Sumurun' was provided with a plot devised by +Herr Freksa, and with music composed by Herr Hollaender; +and it was produced by "Professor" Max +Reinhardt. The story was a little complicated, and +it lacked the transparent simplicity of the 'Enfant +Prodigue,' as it lacked also the broad humanity of the +French piece. Its chief claim to attention was that +it is an amusing spectacle, sensual as well as sensuous. +Its humor had a Teutonic heaviness in marked contrast +with the Gallic lightness of the 'Enfant Prodigue.' +"Professor" Reinhardt sought eccentricity rather than +originality, queerness rather than beauty. His effort +was directed to the achieving of something unexpected +and something different rather than to the attaining +of something good in itself, or of something poetic. +Esthetically, musically, dramatically the German pantomime +was pitiably inferior to the French; and yet so +potent and so permanent is the appeal of the wordless +play that 'Sumurun' pleased a host of younger playgoers, +not old enough to be able to recall the 'Enfant +Prodigue' or 'Humpty-Dumpty,' the Hanlon-Lees, or +the Ravels.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">'Sumurun,' like the 'Enfant Prodigue,' was supported +by its music, which sustained the gestures and +which sometimes suggested more than gesture alone +can do. In the 'Enfant Prodigue,' for example, one +of the most amusing scenes is that in which the elderly +rich man tenders his affections to the charmer who has +fascinated the Prodigal Son. She insists upon marriage. +It would be difficult to convey this idea in pure pantomime. +So she points to the fourth finger of the left +hand, and the orchestra plays the familiar Wedding +March, thus instantly conveying the idea. When she +goes off to get her bonnet, the elderly suitor repeats her +gesture, and the orchestra repeats the Wedding March, +whereupon he winks and shakes his head, giving us +clearly to understand that his intentions are strictly +dishonorable.</p> + +<p class="indent">'Sumurun' is rather a spectacle than a play; and +therefore it makes comparatively little use of the conventionalized +gestures which may be described as the +accepted vocabulary of pantomime, and which have +been developed by the followers of Noverre in France +and in Italy. This vocabulary of gesture is only a +codification of the signs which we naturally make—shaking +the head for "no," nodding for "yes," and +laying a finger on the lips for "hush!" The basis of +any such vocabulary must be the series of gestures by +the aid of which man has always expressed his emotions. +This is why the traditional gestures of theatrical pantomime +do not, and indeed cannot, differ greatly from +any natural sign language. The universality of this +pantomimic vocabulary was curiously evidenced forty +years ago when Morlacchi, the Italian dancer, married +Texas Jack, the American scout. She had been trained +in pantomime at La Scala, in Milan, and he had acquired +the sign language of the Plains Indians. And +they found that they could hold converse with each +other in pantomime, she using the Italian-French gestures +and he employing the gestures of the redskins.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">XII<br /> +THE IDEAL OF THE ACROBAT<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE IDEAL OF THE ACROBAT<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Huckleberry Finn went to the circus he sneaked +in under the tent when the watchman was absent. +He had money in his pocket, but he feared that he +might need this. "I ain't opposed to spending money +on circuses," he confessed, "when there ain't no other +way, but there ain't no use in <i>wasting</i> it on them." +In spite of the fact that he had not paid for his seat, +and that he was thereby released from the necessity +of getting his money's worth, he declared cheerfully +that "it was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest +sight that ever was, when they all come riding in, two +and two, a gentleman and a lady, side by side, the men +just in their drawers and undershirts, and no shoes +nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs, +easy and comfortable ... and every lady with a +lovely complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and looking +like a gang of real sure-enough queens.... And +then, one by one, they got up and stood, and went +a-weaving around the ring so gentle and wavy and +graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy and +straight, with their heads bobbing and skimming along, +away up there under the tent roof, and every lady's +rose-leaf dress flapping soft and silky around her hips, +and she looking like the most loveliest parasol."</p> + +<p class="indent">However much Huck was impressed by the Grand +Entry, he seems to have been more pleased by the surprising +act, traditionally known as 'Pete Jenkins,' and +never better described than by Mark Twain's youthful +hero. "And by and by a drunk man tried to get +into the ring—said he wanted to ride; said he could +ride as well as anybody that ever was. They argued +and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn't listen, and +the whole show came to a standstill. Then the people +began to holler at him and make fun of him.... So +then the ring-master he made a little speech, and said +he hoped there wouldn't be no disturbance, and if the +man would promise he wouldn't make no more trouble, +he would let him ride, if he thought he could stay on +the horse.... The minute he was on the horse he +began to rip and tear and jump and cavort around ... +the drunk man hanging onto his neck, and his heels +flying in the air every jump.... But pretty soon he +struggled up astraddle and grabbed the bridle, a-reeling +this way and that; and the next minute he sprung up +and stood! and the horse a-going like a house afire, too. +He just stood there, a-sailing around as easy and as +comfortable as if he warn't ever drunk in his life—and +then he begun to pull off his clothes and sling them. +He shed them so thick they kind of clogged up the air, +and altogether he shed seventeen suits. And then, here +he was, slim and handsome, and dressed the grandiest +and prettiest you ever saw, and he lit into that horse and +made him hum—and finally skipped off and made his +bow and danced off to the dressing-room, and everybody +just a-howling with pleasure and astonishment. +Then the ring-master, he see how he had been fooled, +and he was the sickest ring-master you ever see, I +reckon. Why, it was one of his own men! He had +got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let +on to nobody!"</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet in this enjoyment of a practical joke, dear to +every boy's heart, Huck did not fail to note that the +skilful rider who had pretended to be intoxicated, +stood up at last, "slim and handsome." Even Huck +Finn, neglected son of the town-drunkard, was quick +to respond to the appeal of the supple and well-proportioned +figure of the rider after the superimposed +clothing had been discarded, just as he had felt the +attraction of the varied colors and the graceful evolutions +of the Grand Entry. At bottom, it was the beauty +of the display that he appreciated most keenly. By the +side of this passage from Mark Twain's masterpiece +may be set a passage from Mr. Hamlin Garland's best +story, 'Rose of Dutcher's Coolly,' in which we find recorded +the impressions of a girl of about the same age, +the daughter of a hard-working Wisconsin farmer. +Rose had never seen a circus before, and even the +morning street parade fired her imagination.</p> + +<p class="indent">"On they came, a band leading the way. Just behind, +with glitter of lance and shine of helmet, came a +dozen knights and fair ladies riding spirited chargers. +They all looked strange and haughty, and sneeringly +indifferent to the cheers of the people. The women +seemed small and firm and scornful, and the men rode +with lances uplifted, looking down at the crowd with +a haughty droop in their eyelids." Rose "did not +laugh at the clown jigging by in a pony-cart, for there +was a face between her and all that followed—the face +of a bare-armed knight, with brown hair and a curling +mustache, whose proud neck had a curve in it as he +bent his head to speak to his rearing horse.... His +face was fine, like pictures she had seen."</p> + +<p class="indent">In the afternoon Rose attended the performance in +the tent and "sat in a dream of delight as the band +began to play.... Then the music struck into a +splendid gallop and out from the curtained mysteries +beyond, the knights and ladies darted, two by two, +in glory of crimson and gold, and green and silver. At +their head rode the man with the brown mustache." +A little later "six men dressed in tights of blue and +white and orange ran into the ring, and her hero led +them. He wore blue and silver, and on his breast was +a rosette. He looked a god to her. His naked limbs, +his proud neck, the lofty carriage of his head, made +her shiver with emotion. They all came to her, lit +by the white radiance; they were not naked, they were +beautiful.... They invested their nakedness with +something which exalted them. They became objects +of luminous beauty to her, tho she knew nothing of art. +To see him bow and kiss his fingers to the audience was +a revelation of manly grace and courtesy." When at +last the show was over and Rose went out into the +open air, "it seemed strange to see the same blue sky +arching the earth; things seemed exactly the same, +and yet Rose had grown older. She had developed +immeasurably in those few hours." As they looked +back at the tents, Rose knew that "something sweet +and splendid and mystical was passing out of her life +after a few hours' stay there. Her feeling of loss was +none the less real because it was indefinable to her."</p> + +<p class="indent">She never saw this acrobat again, and after a little +while she knew that she did not want to see him. He +lingered in her memory, a vision from another world +than any she had ever dreamed—a world of heroic +romance and of lofty idealism. "She began to live +for him, her ideal. She set him on high as a being to +be worshiped, as a man fit to be her judge. In the +days and weeks which followed she asked herself: +'Would he like me to do this?' When the sunset was +very beautiful, she thought of him.... Vast ambitions +began in her.... She would do something great +for his sake.... In short, she consecrated herself to +him as to a king, and seized upon every chance to educate +herself to be worthy of him." And while her soul +was thus expanding under the influence of this poetic +idealization of a manly figure revealed to her only for +two or three hours, all unconsciously she patterned her +movements upon his. She walked with a free stride, +and her body came to have the easy carriage of the +athlete. Later, when Rose had matured into a beauty +of her own, she confessed to an elder woman this sentimental +awakening in her early girlhood; and it became +evident to her friend that "the beautiful poise of the +head, and supple swing of the girl's body was in part +due to the suggestion of the man's perfect grace."</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">To the realistic imagination of the boy, Huck, the +circus was a fleeting spectacle of beauty; and to the +romantic imagination of the girl, Rose, it lingered long +as a dream of poetry. Young Americans, both of them, +living in these modern days when the human form, +male and female, is decorously dissembled and disguised +by ugly and complicated garments, they had been allowed +by the exceptional freedom of the circus to recapture +something of the frank and innocent delight +of the Greeks in the beauty of the body, in its beauty +merely as a body, and not as the habitation of the mind +and the soul. Alert as the Greeks were to admire the +deeds of the mind—no race ever more so—they were +no less keen in their appreciation of the things of the +body. They were glad to crown the poet for his lyric +conquest, but they bestowed the laurel wreath also +on the athlete who had won to the front in the race. +The lofty nobility of their tragedy testifies to the +clarity of their intelligence; and the supreme power of +their sculpture is evidence of their loving study of the +human body, bearing itself in beauty, clad in few and +flowing garments which allowed the eye to follow the +free play of the muscles.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is only in the circus or the gymnasium or the +swimming-pool that we moderns are permitted to behold +what was a daily spectacle to the Greeks; and it +is because the circus preserves for us this occasional +privilege that it deserves to survive. The jocularities +of the clowns, the intricate evolutions of the trained +animals, the golden glitter of the gorgeous cavalcades—all +these are but the casual accompaniments of the +essential privilege of the circus to present to us a succession +of men and women, with their bodies in perfect +condition, to exhibit to us that purely physical +beauty which we are ever in danger of overlooking +or even forgetting. These acrobats, slim and handsome, +as Huck Finn found them, in their "shirts and +drawers," may display their daring and their grace, +standing on a circling steed or swinging from a flying +trapeze, revolving on a horizontal bar or building +themselves up into human pyramids on the bark of the +arena; but, except for the sake of variety, the way in +which they may choose to exhibit their skill and to show +themselves is unimportant. What is important is that +we may have the shifting spectacle of the human body +in the highest condition of physical efficiency, delighting +our eyes by obedience to the everlasting laws of +beauty.</p> + +<p class="indent">While the Greeks had far more opportunities than +are vouchsafed to us moderns to behold the human body +exhibiting its strength and its skill in graceful play, +we have the advantage that many of the most effective +exercises are latter-day inventions. It seems unlikely +that the Athenians and the Spartans, even tho they +were horsemen, had attained to the art of bareback +riding; they may have bestraddled a saddleless steed, +but they had not learned how to stand on his back, +and to turn somersets in time with the stride of the +horse. It is, of course, possible that they were familiar +with this, but no sculpture and no vase-painting, no +anecdote in the works of the prose-writers, and no line +of the lyrists survives to authorize us to believe it. +And it is fairly certain, also, that they lacked the horizontal +bar, which affords limitless possibilities to the +adventurous acrobat of our own times, both when it +is erected singly and when it is combined in sets of +three, either fixed in the arena or raised aloft in the air +to produce the appearance of a remoter ethereality.</p> + +<p class="indent">The trapeze has a name of Greek origin, and it was +possibly known to the Greeks. But the Greeks did +not foresee the full possibilities of the trapeze, since its +most startling utilization, the feat known as the Flying +Trapeze, was invented by the French acrobat, Léotard, +only a little later than the middle of the nineteenth +century. The Flying Trapeze is the ultimate achievement +of acrobatic art, and it demands the utmost combination +of skilful strength and of easy grace. It was +a feat that the Greeks would have appreciated and enjoyed, +since it demanded and disclosed the perfection +of physical courage and of physical skill. Of late, the +Flying Trapeze has been complicated and doubled in +difficulty by the introduction of a second performer, +who at first makes the leap simultaneously with his +partner, and afterward separates from him and springs +thru the air to the trapeze which his associate has just +abandoned, the pair thus floating past each other in +mid-air. In this more elaborated form the task is more +perilous, no doubt, and far less easy of accomplishment; +but it cannot be achieved with quite the same graceful +mastery as when a single performer seems to glide +ethereally from bar to bar, as tho it was impossible for +him to fall or to fail to catch his almost invisible support. +This graceful mastery was the most marked +characteristic of Léotard, the original inventor of the +Flying Trapeze; and it may be doubted whether any +of those who have followed the path he traced thru +the air, and who have vanquished difficulties beyond +those which he conquered, have been able to outdo +him in the abiding essential of grace.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">The overcoming of difficulty is one of the elements +of the pleasure which we take in any art, and part of +our enjoyment of a sonnet, for example, must be +ascribed to the apparent ease with which the poet is +able to express his thought, amply and completely, +within the rigid limitations of his fourteen lines, with +their prescribed arrangement of five or six rimes. +But our delight is diminished if we are made conscious +of the effort it has cost the artist to attain his aim. +Many a later performer on the Flying Trapeze let us +see that the feats he is attempting are so difficult that +they cannot be accomplished without obvious effort. +That is to say, we are made aware that the acrobat is +exhibiting a "stunt," and this is bad art. Difficulty +overcome is worth while only when it is overcome seemingly +without any strain, and when art is sufficient to +conceal itself. However difficult the artist's achievement +may be, its charm is doubled if he can make it +appear to be easy.</p> + +<p class="indent">It happens that I am able to bring his personal testimony +to the fact that this was the principle which +always governed Léotard himself. When the French +gymnast paid his only visit to the United States, more +than forty years ago, he used to practise in a gymnasium +which I also frequented. He spoke no English, and I +had a little school-boy French, so that a certain intimacy +sprang up. One day Léotard asked me to +swing a trapeze for him, and he sprang off and caught +it with a single hand, and then as the second trapeze +returned he twisted and grasped the first trapeze again +with one hand. This evoked from me an immediate +exclamation of astonishment and admiration at the +startling conquest of difficulty, and it was followed by +the natural question why so extraordinary a feat had +never been exhibited in public. Léotard explained that +the leaps from trapeze to trapeze with the aid of one +hand only must be lopsided, since the body is inevitably +more or less twisted, and he added that as there was +an unavoidable and ungraceful wrenching of the person, +he had determined never to exhibit this feat in +public, difficult as it might be.</p> + +<p class="indent">But altho Léotard was not willing to perform in +public with only one hand, it was a most invaluable exercise +in private. His ability to accomplish his leaps +thus handicapped gave him a redoubled confidence +when he was using both of his hands. That he was +right in resisting the temptation to startle the spectators +by a "stunt" of surprising difficulty is beyond +question. It could not be made to seem easy, and it +could not be accomplished with grace. Therefore it +was not fit for exhibition, even tho Léotard might feel +sure that he could do it without risk of failure. Here +the French acrobat revealed himself as bound by the +eternal principles which underlie all the arts, that of +the acrobat no less than those of the painter and the +poet. There is lack of art in the performances of many +acrobats of remarkable skill, who attempt feats which +they are not always certain of achieving. Indeed, +they are sometimes willing to profit by this very uncertainty. +They fail the first time of trying, and even +the second, and these failures serve the purpose of advertising +to the spectators the difficulty of the task +they have undertaken. Then the third time, or the +fourth, they succeed, whereupon they reap the unworthy +reward of applause from the unthinking.</p> + +<p class="indent">The artist should never let us see his failures. If he +is not certain that he can perform what he promises, +then he had better refrain from the attempt. It was +in the same winter that Léotard was in New York, in +the late sixties of the nineteenth century, that the +Hanlon Brothers paid one of their welcome visits to +America. The Hanlons they were then, and they +were acrobats pure and simple, altho later, when they +called themselves the Hanlon-Lees, they had become +pantomimists. As acrobats they held fast to the same +principles which governed Léotard in his performances. +They insisted upon certainty of execution; they never +failed to perform the feat they set out to accomplish, +and to perform it successfully the first time they attempted +it. And no matter how difficult the feat +might be, or how novel or how effective, if they could +not attain absolute certainty of execution, they refrained +from setting it before the public. I was told +at the time that there were two or three surprising and +alluring exercises which the Hanlons had invented +themselves, which they practised laboriously and faithfully +all that winter, and which they wisely refrained +from ever putting on their program because they were +never able to assure themselves of a uniformly successful +result. They could do any one of these feats four +times out of five, but the fifth time there would be a +miscalculation of energy, and the attempt would have +to be repeated. And they were unwilling to let the +public witness any performance of theirs which was +not perfect in its execution.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">Here again the modern acrobat, who is guided by a +real feeling for his art, is in accord with the principles +which the Greeks obeyed. In Attic tragedy, for example, +there are no exhibitions of violence, no scuffles, +and no assassinations, and this is not so much because +the Greeks shrank from scenes of blood, as some critics +have vainly contended, but rather because the actors +in the Attic drama were raised on thick boots and were +topped by towering masks, which made it almost impossible +for them to take part in episodes of vigorous +action, in hand-to-hand struggles, in murders before +the eyes of the spectators, without danger of displacing +the mask, and thereby distracting the attention of the +audience from the immediate purpose of the dramatic +poet. What could not be done gracefully the Greeks +refrained from attempting. The exhibition of difficulty +for the sake of difficulty, still more the failure to +accomplish a "stunt" for the sake of calling attention +to its difficulty—these things the Greeks abhorred. +They would as surely have disapproved of the misguided +artifices of the acrobats who make a practise +of failing once or twice in order to multiply the immediate +effect of their ultimate success as they would reprove +the exhibition of a difficulty conquered for its +own sake. It is only in the best acrobatic performances +that we moderns are privileged to perceive what +was a constant delight to the Greeks—the beauty of the +human form, in its finest physical perfection, certain +of its strength and easy in its grace.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">XIII<br /> +THE DECLINE AND FALL OF<br /> +NEGRO-MINSTRELSY<br /> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE DECLINE AND FALL<br /> OF NEGRO-MINSTRELSY<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> all the varied and manifold kinds of theatrical entertainment +negro-minstrelsy is the only one which +is absolutely native to these States, and the only one +which could not have come into existence anywhere +else in the civilized world. Here in America alone has +the transplanted African been brought into intimate +contact with the transplanted European. Other nations +may have disputed our claim to the invention of +the steamboat and the telegraph, but negro-minstrelsy +is as indisputably due to American inventiveness as the +telephone itself. Here in the United States it had its +humble beginnings; here it expanded and flourished +for many years; from here it was exported to Great +Britain, where it established itself for many seasons; +from here it has made sporadic excursions into France +and into Germany; and here at last it has fallen into +a decline and a degeneracy and a decay which seem +to doom it to a speedy extinction. Its life was little +longer than that vouchsafed to man, threescore years +and ten, for it was born in the fifth decade of the nineteenth +century, and in the second decade of the twentieth +it lingers superfluous on the stage, with none to +do it reverence.</p> + +<p class="indent">Time was when the negro minstrels held possession +of three or four theaters in the single city of New York, +and when a dozen or more troops were traveling from +town to town; and now they have long ago surrendered +their last hall in the metropolis, and only a solitary +company winds its lonely way from theater to theater +thruout the United States. The few surviving practitioners +of the art are reduced to the presentation of +brief interludes in the all-devouring variety-shows, or +to the impersonation of sparse negro characters in +occasional comedies. The Skidmore Guards, who paraded +so gaily at Harrigan and Hart's, are disbanded +now these many years; Johnny Wild of joyous memory +is no more, and Sweatnam, bereft of his fellows in sable +drollery, is seen only in a chance comedy like 'Excuse +Me,' or the 'County Chairman.' George Christy and +Dan Emmett and Dan Bryant have gone and left only +fading memories of their breezy songs, their nimble +dances, and their flippant quips. Edwin Forrest and +Edwin Booth blacked up more than once, Joseph +Jefferson and Barney Williams besmeared themselves +with burnt cork on occasion; but it is not by these +darker episodes in their artistic careers that they are +now recalled, and the leading actors of to-day think +scorn of negro-minstrelsy—whenever they deign to +give it a thought. And yet it must be noted frankly +that when The Lambs wanted to raise money for their +new club-house, they did not disdain the art of the +negro minstrel, and more than twoscore of them went +forth to conquer, willingly disguised in the uniform +blackness assumed long ago by George Christy and +Dan Bryant.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is to be hoped that some devoted historian will +come forward before it is too late and tell us the history +of this very special form of theatrical art, the only +one indigenous to our soil. Indeed, now that our +American universities are paying attention to the +drama, what more alluring theme for the dissertation +demanded of all candidates for the doctorate of philosophy +than an inquiry into the rise and fall of negro-minstrelsy? +In the late Laurence Hutton's conscientious +and entertaining volume on the 'Curiosities of the +American Stage,' there is a chapter in which the subject +is treated historically, altho the chronicler wasted +much of his precious space in considering the succession +of sable characters in the regular drama—Shakspere's +Othello, Southerne's Oroonoko, Bickerstaff's Mungo, +Boucicault's Pete (in the 'Octoroon'), Uncle Tom, +Topsy, Eliza, and their companions (in the undying +dramatization of Mrs. Stowe's story). These were all +parts in plays wherein white characters were prominent. +The first performer of a song-and-dance, that is of a +sketch in which the darky performer was sufficient +unto himself, and was deprived of any support from +persons of another complexion, seems to have been +"Jim Crow" Rice—the title of whose lively lyric survives +in the name bestowed upon the cars reserved for +colored folk on certain Southern railroads. Rice found +his pattern in an old negro who did a peculiar step after +he had sung to a tune of his own contriving:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">Wheel about, turn about;</span><br /> +<span class="i2">Do jus' so:</span><br /> +<span class="i0">An' ebery time I turn about,</span><br /> +<span class="i2">I jump Jim Crow.</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Rice carried Jim Crow to England, and he made a +specialty of dandy darkies. But he was not the discoverer +of negro-minstrelsy, as we know it, altho he +blazed the trail for it. Indeed, it was quite probably +due to the influence of Rice and his darky dandies +that the negro minstrels confined their efforts to the +imitation of the town negro rather than of the plantation +negro, the field-hand of the Uncle Remus type. +Rice first impersonated Jim Crow in the late twenties, +and it was in the middle of the thirties that he went +to England. And it was in the early forties that Dan +Emmett, Frank Brower, Billy Whitlock, and Dick +Pelham happened to meet by accident in a New York +boarding-house, and amused themselves with songs +accompanied by the banjo, the tambourine, and the +bones. Pleased by the result of their exercises, they +appeared together at a benefit, and negro-minstrelsy +was born. At first there was no differentiation into +Interlocutors and End-men; they all took an equal +share in the more or less improvised dialog; they sang, +and they played, and they danced the 'Essence of +Old Virginny.'</p> + +<p class="indent">Probably Emmett began early to provide new tunes +for them. He was the composer of 'Old Dan Tucker' +and the 'Boatman's Dance,' of 'Walk Along, John,' +and 'Early in the Morning,' and one walk-around +which he devised in the late fifties for Bryant's Minstrels, +'Dixie,' was introduced by Mrs. John Wood +into a burlesque, which she was playing in New Orleans, +just before the outbreak of the Civil War. The +sentiment and the tune took the fancy of the ardent +Louisianans, and they carried it with them into the +Confederate army, where it soon established itself as +the war-song of the South. And then when Richmond +had fallen at last, Lincoln ordered the bands of the +victorious army to play 'Dixie,' with the wise explanation +that as we had captured the Southern capital, +we had also captured the Southern song. And 'Dixie,' +which had begun life so humbly as a walk-around in +a minstrel-show in New York, bids fair to survive indefinitely +as the musical testimony to the fact that the +cruel war is over, and that these States are now one +nation.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">It was only a year or two after the quartet of Emmett, +Brower, Whitlock, and Pelham had shown the +possibilities of the new form of amusement that troops +of negro minstrels began to supply an entire evening's +amusement. The regulation First Part was devised +with its curving row of vocalists, instrumentalists, and +comedians. The dignified Interlocutor took his place +in the middle of the semicircle, and uttered the time-honored +phrase: "Gentlemen, be seated. We will +commence with the overture." Bones captured the +chair at one end, and Tambo pre-empted that on the +other; and they began their wordy skirmish with the +Middleman, in which that pompous presiding officer +always got the worst of it. This device for immediate +and boisterous laughter, this putting down of the +Middleman by the End-man, the negro minstrels appear +to have borrowed from the circus, where the +clown is also permitted always to discomfit the stiff and +stately ring-master.</p> + +<p class="indent">But altho the minstrels may have taken over this +effective trick from the circus, with which some of the +earlier performers had had intimate relations, the trick +itself is of remote antiquity. The side-splitting colloquy +of the End-man with the Middleman may be +exactly like the interchange of merry jests between the +clown and the ring-master, yet it is far older than the +modern circus. It existed in Paris, for example, in +the sixteenth century, when the quack doctor was accompanied +by his jack-pudding. Many of the dialogs +heard on the Pont-Neuf between Mondor and Tabarin +have been preserved, and the method is precisely that +of the dialogs between ring-master and clown, Interlocutor +and End-man, even to the persistent repetition +of the question which contains the catch. "Master," +Tabarin would begin, "can you tell me which is the +more generous, a man or a woman?" And the quack +doctor would solemnly reply: "Ah, Tabarin, that is a +question which has been greatly debated by the philosophers +of antiquity, and they have been unable to +decide which is truly the more generous, a man or a +woman." Then Tabarin would briskly retort: "Never +mind the old philosophers. I can tell you." And with +great contempt the ponderous quack doctor would +return: "What, Tabarin, do you mean to say that you +can tell us which is the more generous, a man or a +woman." Tabarin promptly responded that he could. +"Then," asked Mondor, "pray do so. Which is the +more generous, a man or a woman?" And thereupon, +to the great disgust of Mondor, Tabarin would proffer +his ribald explanation. Unfortunately the explanation +he gave is frankly too ribald to be given here, for nowadays +we are more squeamish than the idlers who gathered +around the quack doctor's platform in Paris three +or four centuries ago. The dialogs of Mondor and +Tabarin were brief enough, but they often made up for +their brevity in their breadth.</p> + +<p class="indent">This kind of catch-question was known in England, +under Elizabeth, as "selling a bargain," and it is not +infrequent in the plays of the time. It will be found +more than once in earlier plays of Shakspere; for example, +when his "clowns" (as the low-comedy characters +were then called) were allowed to run on at their +own sweet will. Not a little of the dialog of the two +Dromios is closely akin in its method to the interchange +of question and answer between the Interlocutor and +the End-man. We may be sure this method of evoking +laughter was employed also by the improvising +comedians of the Italian comedy-of-masks, with which +negro-minstrelsy has other points of resemblance. It +must have been popular with the wandering glee-men +of the rude Middle Ages; and now that negro-minstrelsy +is disappearing and now that our circuses have +burgeoned into three rings under a tent too vast for +any merely verbal repartees, it has not departed from +among us, since it still survives as the staple of the so-called +"sidewalk conversationalists" who swap personalities +in our superabundant variety-shows.</p> + +<p class="indent">We do not know with historic certainty how soon +the First Part crystallized into the form which has long +been traditional—the opening overture, the catch-questioning +of End-man and Middleman, the comic +songs of Bones and Tambo in turn, the sentimental +ballads by the silver-throated vocalists, and the concluding +walk-around. The rest of the evening's entertainment +never took on any definite framework, altho +the final item on the program was likely to be a piece +of some length, often a burlesque of a serious drama +then popular, and this little play "enlisted the whole +strength of the company." Between the stately First +Part and the more pretentious terminating sketch, the +minstrels presented a variety of acts in which the several +members exhibited their specialities. A clog-dance +was always in order—altho the mechanical precision +of this form of saltatorial exercise was wholly foreign +to the characteristics of the actual negroes whom the +minstrels were supposed to be representing. A stump-speech +was certain of a warm reception—altho this +again departed from the true negro tradition, and, in +fact, often degenerated into frank burlesque, wholly +unrelated to the realities of life. Sketches, like those +which Rice had earlier composed for his own acting, +were likely to have a little closer relation to the genuine +darky.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet here again the negro minstrel was not avid of +overt originality. He was willing to find his profit in +the past and to translate into negro dialect any farce, +however ancient, which might contain comic situations +or humorous characters that could be twisted to suit +his immediate purpose. He seized upon the ingenious +plots of certain of the pantomimes brought to America +from France half a century ago by the Ravels. And +on occasion he went, unwittingly, still further afield +for his prey. There is in print, in a collection of so-called +Ethiopian drama, an amusing sketch, entitled +the 'Great Mutton Trial'; and the remote source of +this is to be sought in the oldest and best farce which +has survived in French literature. 'Maître Pierre +Pathelin' is now acted occasionally by the Comédie-Française +in Paris, in a version which preserves its +original flavor; but in the eighteenth century an adaptation, +made by Brueys and Palaprat, and called the +'Avocat Pathelin,' was popular. It was this later perversion +which served as the basis of an English farce, +entitled the 'Village Lawyer,' and the 'Great Mutton +Trial' is simply the 'Village Lawyer' transmogrified to +suit the bolder and more robust methods of the negro +minstrels.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">And here we may discover the real reason why negro-minstrelsy +failed to establish itself. It neglected its +opportunity to devote itself primarily to its own peculiar +field—the humorous reproduction of the sayings +and doings of the colored man in the United States. +To represent the negro in his comic aspects and in his +sentimental moods was what the minstrels pretended +to do; but the pretense was often only a hollow mockery. +Even the musical instruments they affected, the +banjo and the bones, were not as characteristic of the +field-hand, or even of the town darky, as the violin. +Indeed, the bones cannot be considered as in any way +special to the negro; they were familiar to Shakspere's +Bottom, who declared: "I have a reasonable good ear +in music; let us have the tongs and the bones." And +the wise recorder of the words and deeds of Uncle +Remus asserted that he had never listened to the +staccato picking of a banjo in the negro-quarters of +any plantation.</p> + +<p class="indent">"I have seen the negro at work," so Harris once +stated, "and I have seen him at play; I have attended +his corn-shuckings, his dances, and his frolics; I have +heard him give the wonderful melody of his songs to +the winds; I have heard him give barbaric airs to the +quills" (that is to say, to the Pan-pipes); "I have heard +him scrape jubilantly on the fiddle; I have seen him +blow wildly on the bugle, and beat enthusiastically on +the triangle; but I have never heard him play on the +banjo." Mr. George W. Cable thereupon came forward +with his evidence to the effect that, altho the +banjo was to be found occasionally on a plantation, +it was far less frequently seen than the violin. It will +be noted that Harris was speaking of the Georgian +negro, and that Mr. Cable was talking about the negro +in Louisiana; and perhaps the true habitat of the banjo +is to be found farther north and near to the border +States. At any rate, there is a footnote to one of +Thomas Jefferson's 'Notes on Virginia' (published in +1784), which informs us that the instrument proper to +the slaves of the Old Dominion is "the banjar, which +they brought hither from Africa, and which is the origin +of the guitar, its chords being precisely the four lower +chords of the guitar."</p> + +<p class="indent">Now and again some one negro minstrel did make a +serious study of a negro type; such a performer was +J. W. McAndrews, the "Watermelon Man." But the +most of them were content to be comic without any +effort to catch the special comicality of the darky; and +sometimes they strayed so completely from the path +as to indulge in songs in an alleged Irish brogue or in +a dislocated German dialect. Now, nothing could +well be conceived more incongruously inartistic than +a white man blacked up into the semblance of a negro, +and then impertinently caroling an impudent Irish +lyric. Yet the general neglect of the opportunities +for a more accurate presentation of negro characteristics +is to be seen in the strange fact that the minstrels +failed to perceive the possible popularity of rag-time +tunes, and failed also to put the cake-walk on the +stage. Even at the height of its vogue in the mid years +of the nineteenth century, negro-minstrelsy did not +occupy its own field, and did not try to raise therein +the varied flowers of which they had the seed.</p> + +<p class="indent">Instead of cultivating the tempting possibilities +which lay before them, and devoting themselves to a +loving delineation of the colored people who make up +a tenth of our population, they turned aside to devote +themselves to the spectacular elaboration of their original +entertainment. The clog-dances became most intricate +and more mechanical—and thereby still more +remote from the buck-and-wing dancing of the real +negro. The First Part was presented with accompaniments +of Oriental magnificence and of variegated +glitter. The chorus was enlarged; the musicians were +multiplied; the End-men operated in relays; and at +last the bass-drum which towered aloft over Haverly's +Mastodon Minstrels bore the boastful legend: "40. +Count Them. 40." And when the suspicious spectator +obeyed this command, he discovered to his surprise +that the vaunt was more than made good since +he had a full view of at least half a dozen performers +in addition to the promised twoscore.</p> + +<p class="indent">At the apex of his inflated prosperity Haverly invaded +Germany with his mastodonic organization; +and one result of his visit was probably still further to +confuse the Teutonic misinformation about the American +type, which seems often to be a curious composite +photograph of the red men of Cooper, the black men +of Mrs. Stowe, and the white men of Mark Twain and +Bret Harte. And it was reported at the time that +another and more immediate result of this rash foray +beyond the boundaries of the English-speaking race +was that Haverly was, for a while, in danger of arrest +by the police for a fraudulent attempt to deceive the +German public, because he was pretending to present +a company of <i>negro</i> minstrels, whereas his performers +were actually white men!</p> + +<p class="indent">It should be recorded that while the vogue lasted, +there did come into existence sundry troops of minstrels +whose members were all of them actually colored men, +altho they conformed to the convention set by those +whom they were imitating and conscientiously disguised +themselves with burnt cork, to achieve the sable +uniformity temporarily attained by the ordinary negro +minstrels. Perhaps the most obvious parallel of the +blacking up of veritable colored men to follow the +example of the white men who pretended to imitate +the negro is to be found in the original performance of +'As You Like It,' on the Elizabethan stage, when the +shaven boy-actor who impersonated Rosalind disguised +himself as a lad, and then had to pretend to +Orlando that he was a girl.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">For the decline and fall of negro-minstrelsy it is easy +to find more than one sufficient explanation. First of +all, it may have been due to its failure to devote itself +lovingly to the representation of the many peculiarities +of the negro himself. Second, it is possible that negro-minstrelsy +had an inherent and inevitable disqualification +for enduring popularity, in that it was exclusively +masculine and necessarily deprived of the potent attractiveness +exerted by the members of the more fascinating +sex. And in the third place, its program was +rather limited and monotonous, and therefore negro-minstrelsy +could not long withstand the competition of +the music-hall, of the variety-show, and of the comic +musical pieces, which satisfied more amply the exactly +similar taste of the public for broad fun commingled +with song and dance.</p> + +<p class="indent">Whatever the precise cause may be, there is no denying +that negro-minstrelsy is on the verge of extinction, +however much we may bewail the fact. It failed to +accomplish its true purpose, and it is disappearing, +leaving behind it little that is worthy of preservation +except a few of its songs. This, at least, it has to its +credit—that it gave Stephen Collins Foster the chance +to produce his simple melodies. Perhaps we might +even venture to assert that the existence of negro-minstrelsy +is justified by a single one of these songs—by +'Old Folks at Home,' which has a wailing melancholy +and an unaffected pathos, lacking in the earlier +and more saccharine 'Home, Sweet Home,' which the +English composer, Bishop, based on an old Sicilian +tune. After Foster came Root and Work, and 'My +Old Kentucky Home' was succeeded by 'Tramp, +Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching,' and by +'Marching thru Georgia'—which last lyric now shares +its popularity only with 'Dixie' as a musical relic of +the Civil War.</p> + +<p class="indent">It would be pleasant to know whether it was one of +Foster's songs, and which one it may have been that +once touched the tender heart of Thackeray. "I heard +a humorous balladist not long since," the novelist recorded, +"a minstrel with wool on his head, and an ultra +Ethiopian complexion, who performed a negro ballad +that I confess moistened these spectacles in a most +unexpected manner. They have gazed at dozens of +tragedy-queens dying on the stage and expiring in +appropriate blank verse, and I never wanted to wipe +them. They have looked up, with deep respect be it +said, at many scores of clergymen without being +dimmed, and behold! a vagabond with a corked face +and a banjo, sings a little song, strikes a wild note, +which sets the heart thrilling with happy pity."</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">XIV<br /> +THE UTILITY OF THE VARIETY-SHOW<a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE UTILITY OF THE VARIETY-SHOW<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> an advertisement issued by one of the huge department +stores of New York not long ago, the assertion +was made that the house had on sale "all the new +novelties." A purist in language might be moved to +protest that this proclamation was plainly tautological, +because it is the essential quality of every novelty to +be new. But even a purist in language, if he happens +also to be an honest observer of things as they are, +would be forced to admit that his supercilious cavil +had only a superficial justification, since, as a matter +of fact, there are many novelties which are not new, +and which, indeed, are venerably ancient. It was +Solomon, superabundantly married, and therefore in +an excellent position to acquire wisdom, who declared +that there is nothing new under the sun. Wireless +telegraphy is only a development of the signaling by +beacon-fires, which was practised by the Greeks and +which they employed to convey immediately to Greece +the glad tidings of the fall of Troy; and moving-pictures +are only an ingenious amplification of the zoëtrope of +our childhood.</p> + +<p class="indent">The amusement-parks which sprang up all over the +United States in the early part of the twentieth century, +in imitation of those at Coney Island, bear an +undeniable resemblance to the Foire Saint Laurent +and to the other fairs of Paris in the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries, and even the loud-voiced crier +who proclaims the merits of the several side-shows, +and who is now known as a "barker," bears a name +which is only a translation of that given to his forbears +two hundred years ago in France—<i>aboyeur</i>.</p> + +<p class="indent">The so-called cabaret-shows, prevalent in the larger +cities of the United States in the winter of 1911-1912, +were hailed as the very latest form of amusement, +combining as they did the solid pleasures of the table +with the ethereal delights of song-and-dance; and yet +Froissart is a witness that something very like the +cabaret-show was known in the Middle Ages, and +Gibbon has recorded its existence nearly a thousand +years earlier, at the court of Theodoric. Indeed, the +Romans, and the Greeks before them, had employed +performers of one sort or another to relieve the monotony +of their banquets. Gaditanian dancers were +popular thruout the wide realm of Rome, almost two +thousand years before Carmencita came from Cadiz +to warble and caper at midnight in the studios of +American painters, just before and just after the guests +had enjoyed the refreshments provided by their artistic +hosts.</p> + +<p class="indent">As the cabaret-show is only another form of the well-known +"vaudeville supper," it must be relegated to +the class of novelties which are not new. And vaudeville +itself is only the long familiar variety-show. It +may now be called by a new name, and many of those +who do not look behind a label may accept it as a new +thing; nevertheless it is very old, indeed. The name +"vaudeville" is an absurd misnomer, like so many +other terms due to our habit of careless borrowing from +other tongues. In French <i>vaudeville</i> originally designated +a kind of topical song, bristling with pointed +gibes at the follies of the moment; and then in time it +took on another meaning, when it was used to describe +a light and lively farce interspersed with occasional +lyrics set to old-fashioned tunes. It is impossible to +say just how and why this French word, which had +two distinct meanings in its own language, should have +been imported into English to characterize improperly +a form of amusement which we had long known by the +admirably exact name of variety-show. The French +themselves call their own type of variety-show, at +which refreshments are served, a <i>café-concert</i>. Their +nickname for it is a <i>beuglant</i>, a place where there is +"howling"—which seems to imply that they do not +expect too much melody from the singers, who appear +at these performances. In England an establishment +of this kind is called a music-hall; and it was more than +half a century ago that Planché described their blatant +lyrics set to brazen tunes as "most music-hall, most +melancholy."</p> + +<p class="indent">Whatever its name may be in the different parts of +the world, the entertainment is much the same. The +most frequent item on the program is the comic song, +often accompanied by a rudimentary dance. Sometimes +it is in the martial staccato of Paulus's 'En revenant +de la révue' which boosted General Boulanger +into a furious but fleeting political popularity. Sometimes +it is the coonful melody of 'Under the Bamboo +Tree' or 'Dinah, the Moon am Shining.' Sometimes it +is an almost epileptic lyric, like 'Tarara-boom-de-ay.' +Sometimes a singer of a more delicate art, like Yvette +Guilbert, ventures upon songs of a more subtly sentimental +appeal. There may be a swift succession of +solos, male singers and female alternating, those of the +most fame appearing latest, as is the practise in the +first part of the Parisian open-air <i>café-chantant</i>, the +Alcazar or the Ambassadeurs. There may be duets +or trios or quartets, serious or comic, decorously unadorned +or diversified by dancing. There may be +songs to be interpreted by half a dozen performers, +accompanied by more or less dramatic action, like the +'Mulligan Guards,' which was the simple germ wherefrom +sprouted the long series of more and more elaborate +Harrigan and Hart plays, delineating with keen +insight and with sympathetic humor the manifold +aspects of tenement-house life in New York, and possessing +a rich flavor of fun curiously akin to that which +amuses us in the plays wherein Plautus had sketched +the tenement-house life in Rome two thousand years +ago.</p> + +<p class="indent">While the song and the song-and-dance and the +song-and-parade may be the staple of the entertainment, +the variety-show justifies its name by the medley +of other exhibitions it presents. It delights in the +dance unaccompanied by the song; and in some of the +English music-halls, the Alhambra and the Empire in +London, the ballet is the foremost attraction, providing +an opportunity for the display of her dainty art to so +exquisite a dancer as Mlle. Genée. In New York it +is now a refuge for the waifs and strays of vanishing +negro-minstrelsy. It is ready to welcome the wandering +conjurer and the strolling juggler. It extends its +hospitality to the acrobat, single or in groups, throwing +flipflaps on the stage, flying thru the air on a trapeze +or diving into the water in a tank. It acts as host to +the trainer of performing animals, dogs and cats, seals +and elephants. It lends its stage to the puppet-show +performer, to the sidewalk conversationalist, and to +the ventriloquist, with his pair of stolid figures seemingly +seated uncomfortably on his knees and actually +supported by his hands, while his adroit fingers manipulate +their mechanical mouths.</p> + +<p class="indent">Of late, the variety-show has accepted the aid of the +exhibitors of moving-pictures, just as the exhibitors +of moving-pictures have invoked the casual assistance +of song-and-dance teams and of other vaudeville performers +to relieve the strain on the eyes of their spectators. +And the introduction of the cinematograph, +or the bioscope, or whatever it may be called, is, perhaps, +the only real novelty in our latter-day variety-show. +All the other performers are presenting feats +of a kind known to our remote ancestors, even if these +feats are now more skilfully presented. Animals were +put thru their paces hundreds of years ago; and performing +dogs and educated bears figure frequently in +the illuminations which decorate many a medieval +manuscript. There were tight-rope dancers in Alexandria +and in Byzantium; there were contortionists in +Rome and in Greece, and the flexibility of these latter +is preserved for us in the vase-paintings which have +been replevined from the ashes of Pompeii and the +lava of Herculaneum. Quintillian tells us of the wonderful +feats of certain performers on the stage in his +day, "with balls, and of other jugglers whose dexterity +is such that one might suppose the things which they +throw from them to return of their own accord, and to +fly wheresoever they are commanded." The art of +modern magic has enlarged its boundaries by the aid +of the modern sciences of mechanics and physics, but +elementary sleights-of-hand were known to a remote +antiquity, and savages always had their medicine-men +and their marabouts, workers of primitive wonders to +strike awe into the souls of their unsophisticated beholders. +The variety-show may have the variety it +vaunts itself as possessing; but to novelty it can lay +little claim.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">The constituent elements of the variety-show as we +know it to-day have existed since a time whereof the +memory of man runneth not to the contrary—to use +the old legal phrase. The appeal of almost every one +of these elements and of the variety-show as a whole +is ever to the eye and to the ear, to the senses rather +than to the emotions; and to the intellect it appeals +even more infrequently. Its primary purpose is to +afford a kaleidoscopic succession of contrasted amusements +for the benefit of those who are easily satisfied +by glitter of spectacle, by incessant movement, and by +violent music. It is the ideal entertainment for that +redoubtable entity, the Tired Business Man, who +checks his brains with his overcoat, and who resents +having to witness anything in the theater which might +make him think. Not only does the variety-show +flourish because it is exactly adjusted to the unintellectual +and purely sensational likings of the Tired Business +Man and to the similar tastes of his fit mate, who +is fatigued because her life is idle and empty, but for +his benefit also, and for hers the summer song-show +and the alleged "comic opera" and the misnamed +"review" have been called into existence. Indeed, it +is obvious enough that most of our summer song-shows +and many of our "comic operas" and "reviews" are, +in reality, only more or less disguised variety-shows.</p> + +<p class="indent">With facts as they are, there is never any excuse for +quarreling. The Tired Business Man is a fact; and it +is only fair that what he demands shall be supplied by +caterers to the cravings of the populace. But even +tho his name is legion, the Tired Business Man is to +be accepted only with contemptuous toleration. He +is to be endured only so long as he does not insist on +imposing his likings upon others who have a more +delicate perception, and who are willing to bring their +brains with them when they take their places in the +theater. Even in the variety-show which seems often +to exist only for the pleasure of those who still linger +in what one of George Eliot's wise characters aptly +called "a puerile state of culture," nevertheless, we +can now and again discover signs of a longing for something +less void of purpose than mere spectacle. For +example, it was in a variety-show that Mr. Belasco's +finely imaginative dramatization of Mr. Long's 'Madame +Butterfly' was set before the American public +several years prior to its being adorned by the pathetic +music of Puccini for the benefit of opera-goers.</p> + +<p class="indent">In fact, it is well to remember that the <i>opéra comique</i> +of the French had its humble origin in the theater of +the Parisian fairs, where also we can discover the rude +beginnings of that crude form of melodrama which +Victor Hugo lifted into literature in 'Hernani' and +'Ruy Bias,' casting the cloth-of-gold of his splendid +lyricism over the arbitrarily articulated skeleton of +his violent action. It was an old negro-minstrel act, +representing the rehearsal of an amateur band, that +the Hanlon-Lees borrowed to amplify into a rough-and-tumble +pantomime for performance in a variety-show +in Paris; and this knockabout sketch proved to +be the stepping-stone which enabled them soon to +achieve the fantastic eccentricity of their 'Voyage en +Suisse,' performed in real theaters, first in Paris and +then in New York, to the joy of all who could appreciate +the perfection of their art as pantomimists. And, +once again, it was in a variety-show of the lowest class +that Denman Thompson first appeared as 'Josh Whitcomb +Among the Female Bathers,' a vulgar episode +of indelicate humor, wherein, however, was contained +the germ of that perennially popular play, the 'Old +Homestead,' which gave a pure pleasure to countless +thousands of theater-goers, season after season, for at +least a quarter of a century.</p> + +<p class="indent">When we look back over the long annals of the +variety-show we cannot escape the conclusion that +here is its real opportunity, its true function, and its +necessary justification. For the most part, it supplies +a purely sensational amusement for the unthinking; +and yet it is continually serving as a nursery for the +actual theater. It is thus seen to be a proving ground +for the seeds of widely different dramatic species—<i>opéra +comique</i> and melodrama in France, the <i>ballet +d'action</i> in England, the rural play in the United States. +It is not always conscious of its possibilities, nor does +it always improve them to best advantage. Normally +it provides an entertainment appealing mainly to the +senses, often empty, and often unsatisfying because of +its monotony. But on occasion it is capable of grasping +at higher things, and of encouraging artists who will +sooner or later outgrow its limitations and transfer +their activities to the theaters wherein audiences are +more eager for veracity of character portrayal.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">On one side the variety-show intersects the ring of +the circus and the curving line of the First Part of +negro-minstrelsy, while on the other it impinges on the +sphere of the more literary drama. Its existence is +evidence that the show business is always the show +business, no matter how manifold and dissimilar its +manifestations may seem to be. The men and women +who have grown up in the regular theaters are a little +inclined to be scornfully jealous of the less highly +esteemed performers in the variety-show, even if they +themselves are occasionally tempted by the lure of +high pay for hard work to condescend to vaudeville +engagements. No doubt, the bill of fare set before us +more often than not in the variety-show justifies this +attitude on the part of the high priests of the more +legitimate drama; yet they ought to be broad-minded +enough to recognize merit wherever it may be found. +The late John Gilbert, best of Sir Peter Teazles, and +of Sir Anthony Absolutes, was not a little provoked +by the praise bestowed upon Harrigan and Hart and +their associates by Mr. Howells and by other critics +of the acted drama, who relished the peculiar flavor +of 'Squatter Sovereignty' and its companion plays. +Gilbert was puzzled to discover any reason why any +criticism whould be wasted on pieces which pretended +to be little more than variety-show sketches. But +Joseph Jefferson, a far more versatile comedian than +John Gilbert, was swift to discern merit, and he was +wholly free from toplofty condescension toward other +forms of the histrionic art than that in which he was +himself pre-eminent—perhaps, because in his youth +he had often appeared as a burlesque actor, an experience +which he gladly admitted to have been very valuable +to him. After Jefferson had gone to see one of +the nondescript pieces at Weber and Fields's music-hall, +joyous spectacles commingled of song and dance, of +eccentric character and of sheer fun, he was loud in +his praise of the histrionic art displayed here and there +in the course of the performance, declaring without +hesitation that one episode, in which the two managers +took part, was simply the finest piece of comic acting +he had seen that whole winter. Probably the ordinary +playgoers, who had flocked to be amused by this loose-jointed +piece, took a somewhat apologetic attitude +toward the pleasure they had received; and probably +they supposed that their pleasure at the entertainment +offered to them was due mainly to the pervading bustle +and dazzle of the kaleidoscopic show. But Jefferson +had a keener insight into the practise of the art +he adorned; and he recognized at once the sheer histrionic +skill which lent the illusion of life to the fantastic +impossibility of the humorous situation.</p> + +<p class="indent">Jefferson, one may venture to assert, would not have +been surprised if he had learned that an American +university professor of dramatic literature, whenever +he came to discuss the lyrical-burlesques of Aristophanes, +was in the habit of sending his whole class to +Weber and Fields that his students might see for themselves +the nearest modern analog to the robust fantasies +of the great Greek humorist. Aristophanes was a +many-sided genius; as a lyric poet of ethereal elevation +he must be set by the side of Shelley; as a keen satirist +of contemporary fads and foibles he must be compared +with Rabelais; and as a fun-maker pure and simple, +as a comic playwright, willing and able to evoke unexpected +laughter by ludicrous antics, he reveals an +undeniable likeness to the adroit devisers of the hodgepodge +of humorous episodes represented with contagious +humor by Weber and Fields. And the heterogeneous +pieces which used to be produced by the two performers +who devote themselves to the dislocation of +the English language were outgrowths of the variety-show, +from which, indeed, the two performers themselves +were graduates.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is this aspect of the variety-show, its supplying of +opportunities for artistic development to ambitious +performers, and its own spontaneous generation of dramatic +forms capable of being lifted into literature—it +is this aspect of the variety-show which would be +emphasized by any competent writer undertaking to +narrate its long and involved history. That no one +has yet written a history of the variety-show is as surprising +as that no one has yet written a history of +negro-minstrelsy. The materials for such a book are +accessible and abundant, since there are already richly +documented accounts of the fairs of Paris and of +London, in which the variety-show flourished centuries +ago. There are accounts of the English concert-halls +as they now exist and of the French <i>café-concerts</i>. The +historian will also be aided by the various treatises on +the ballet, and on the circus, and on the puppet-show, +with all of which forms of entertainment the variety-show +has always had intimate relations.</p> + +<p class="indent">It may be that the future historian will be moved +to point out the superficial likeness between the variety-show +and the Sunday issues of certain American newspapers. +These Sunday newspapers are really magazines—that +is to say, they occupy a position midway +between journalism and literature, just as the variety-show +occupies a position midway between the circus +and the theater. The magazine pages of these Sunday +newspapers set before their readers a very variegated +bill of fare; they provide photographs of recent events—which +are the equivalent of the moving-pictures of +the variety-show; they contain short-stories—which +are, in narrative, what the brief plays of the variety-show +are in dialog and action; they abound in anecdotes +and in comic sayings—which are closely akin to +the utterances of the sidewalk conversationalists of the +variety-show. And the variety-show itself is like +journalism, in that it is a modern combination of elements +of the remotest antiquity, for altho the actual +newspaper is only two or three centuries old, there +were always channels by which news was conveyed to +the eager public. The men of Athens nearly two thousand +years ago were glad to hear and to tell some new +thing, and their wants were supplied, even if there was +in classical antiquity and in the Middle Ages no organization +faintly anticipating the marvelous machinery +for collecting and distributing information possessed +by the newspapers of the twentieth century.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">XV<br /> +THE METHOD OF MODERN MAGIC<a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE METHOD OF MODERN MAGIC<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">"Autobiography,"</span> said Longfellow—altho the remark +does not seem especially characteristic of this gentle +poet—"is what biography ought to be." And in the +long list of alluring autobiographies, from Cellini's and +Cibber's, from Franklin's and Goldoni's, there are few +more fascinating than the 'Confidences of a Prestidigitator' +of Robert-Houdin. A hostile critic of Robert-Houdin's +career has recorded the fact—if it is a fact—that +Robert-Houdin once confided to a fellow magician +that his autobiography had been written for him by a +clever Parisian journalist; and it must be admitted +that not a few amusing French autobiographies have +not been the children of their putative parents—for +instance, the memoirs of Vidocq, the detective. Yet +this is not as damaging an admission as it may seem +at first sight since the clever Parisian journalist may +have been little more than the amanuensis of the +prestidigitator, hired only to give literary form to the +actual recollections of his employer. Such a proceeding +would not deprive Robert-Houdin's autobiography +by its authenticity. It remains a classic, beloved by +all who joy in the delights of conjuring. Unfortunately +the hostile critic has gone further in his attack upon +Robert-Houdin's reputation, and he has succeeded in +showing that the renowned French conjurer claimed +as his own invention not a few illusions which had been +already exhibited by his predecessors in the art of deception.</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet this unjustified boasting does not invalidate +Robert-Houdin's title to be considered the father of +modern magic. Even if he was treading in the path +of those who had gone before, he attained at last to a +consistent theory of the art, far in advance of that held +by earlier magicians. Many of his marvels, and perhaps +more than one of the most striking of them, may +have been but improvements upon effects originally +contrived by others; yet every succeeding generation +can rise only by standing upon the shoulders of the +generations that went before, and it is justified in availing +itself of all that these earlier generations may have +discovered and invented. Robert-Houdin tells us himself +that he was greatly indebted to the Comte de Grisy, +whose stage-name was Torrini. In fact, Robert-Houdin +might be called a pupil of Torrini, as Mr. +John S. Sargent is a pupil of Carolus Duran. It was +upon Torrini's dignified simplicity as a magician that +Robert-Houdin modelled his own unpretending presentation +of his feats of magic. Apparently it was a +famous conjurer named Frikell, who first discarded +the cumbersome and glittering array of apparatus +which used to be displayed on the stage to dazzle the +eyes of the spectators; but this discarding of obtrusive +paraphernalia was not deliberate, being due only +to the accidental destruction of Frikell's stage-furniture +by fire, whereby the performer was suddenly +forced to rely upon the less complicated experiments, +which could be exhibited without extraneous aid. +The abandoning of overt apparatus, which Frikell was +forced into by misfortune, Robert-Houdin adopted as +an abiding principle. He kept his stage as unencumbered +as possible, altho, of course, he brought forward +from time to time the special objects necessary for the +illusions he was about to exhibit.</p> + +<p class="indent">Not only did he perform on a stage which was intended +to resemble a drawing-room, he also eschewed +any other costume than that appropriate to a drawing-room. +Earlier performers had not hesitated to deck +themselves in Oriental apparel or in the flowing garb +of a medieval magician. Robert-Houdin was always +modern and never medieval; and he adopted this +attitude deliberately. He was the first to formulate +the fundamental principle of the modern art of magic—that +a conjurer should be "an actor playing the part +of a magician." One of the foremost exponents of +modern magic, Mr. Maskelyne, notes that many conjurers +strive only to play the part of some other conjurer; +and it might be added that there are not a few +who fail entirely to see the necessity for playing a part +and who content themselves with a purposeless display +of their misplaced dexterity. But the masters +of the art are men like Robert Heller and Buatier da +Kolta, who were accomplished comedians, each in his +own fashion, and who presented a succession of little +plays—for a truly good experiment in magic is really +a diminutive drama.</p> + +<p class="indent">It may be brief and simple—a play in one act; or +it may be prolonged and complicated—a play in three +or five acts. But like any other play it ought to possess +a central idea and to have a definite plot. It +should tend straight toward its single conclusion, which +must be the logical development of all that has gone +before; that is to say, it must possess what the critics +of the drama term Unity of Action. It should have a +beginning, a middle, and an end, in accord with Aristotle's +requirement for a tragedy. It must work up +to its culmination with a steadily increasing intensity +of interest. It must contain nothing not directly contributory +to the startling climax which is its surprising +and satisfying conclusion. It must not digress or dally +in by-paths, however entertaining these may be in +themselves, but push onward to its inevitable finish. +It is only by conceiving of every one of his successive +experiments as a play, complete in itself and governed +by the inexorable laws of the drama, that the magician +can rise to the summit of his art. He is a conjurer +and a comedian at the same time, making his dexterity +the servant of his drama, and never for a single moment +allowing this dexterity to force itself upon the attention +of the audience. Indeed, the one thing he ought +to conceal is his possession of any special gift in manipulation. +He should keep his audience ever guessing +as to the method of his apparent miracles.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">It is because Robert-Houdin was seemingly the first +conjurer to adopt these principles as his irrefragable +code of procedure that he is to be accepted as the father +of modern magic. He never allowed himself to parade +his skill in manipulating coins and cards at the risk of +distracting the attention of the spectators from the +central and culminating effect around which he had +constructed his plot. No doubt, he possessed dexterity +in abundance, but it was subordinate to his +dramatic intent. No doubt, again, some of the devices +he used had sometimes been employed by a long +succession of his predecessors in conjuring. As a +matter of course he availed himself of all sorts of mere +tricks, of ingenious sleights, and of artful apparatus +that the conjurers who went before him had devised +for their own use long before he was born. An experiment +in magic—to use the term that Mr. Maskelyne +prefers, is not a mere trick—or at least it ought not to +be. It is not the exhibition of a device or of a sleight +or of an adroit mechanical apparatus. Rather is it +a coherent whole, direct in its development, no matter +how many subtleties of concealment and deception it +may employ in the course of its accomplishment.</p> + +<p class="indent">Most amateurs in the art of magic, and also only +too many professional performers, place their reliance +mainly upon the trick itself—the deceptive manipulation +or the novel apparatus—and are satisfied to get +out of it what they can. They invent new methods of +changing a card or of making coins pass into a box, +overlooking the fact that these inventions are valueless +except as they may be utilized to facilitate the execution +of one of those larger feats which only are fairly +to be entitled experiments in magic, and which are +distinguished always by the direct simplicity and the +straightforward unity of their plots. In fact, an experiment +in magic must aim at that totality of effect, +that perfect subordination of the minor means to the +major end, which Poe insisted upon as the dominant +characteristic of the true short-story. And this totality +of effect can be achieved only by the rigorous exclusion +of everything which in any way contradicts +that central idea out of which the true short-story +must always be developed. Unity and totality, and a +rigorous obedience to what Herbert Spencer called the +Principle of Economy of Attention—these are the essential +elements in the presentation of a worthy experiment +in magic.</p> + +<p class="indent">An intimate friend of the late Alexander Hermann, +the last of a long line of Hermanns who have been +eminent in the history of the art, has asserted that +Alexander Hermann was wont to insist that the conjurer +must possess three qualifications for the practise +of his profession. The first of these is dexterity; the +second is dexterity; and the third is also dexterity. +Now, there is a sense in which this assertion is true; +but it may be easily misapprehended. A conjurer +needs to be dexterous, altho more than one master of +modern magic, notably Robert Heller, has not been +pre-eminent in the possession of this qualification. +A moderate degree of dexterity is essential, and perhaps +more than a moderate degree; but dexterity is +not the prime requisite, which is rather the dramatic +instinct, or, perhaps, it had better be called the dramaturgic +imagination, that can hit on a new idea and +build it up into a plot, and thus devise an experiment +in magic completely satisfactory to the artistic sense.</p> + +<p class="indent">What the master of the magic art never forgets is +that dexterity is not an end in itself; it is only one of +the means by the aid of which the marvel may be +wrought. There are, to-day, performers of a surpassing +skill in the manipulation of cards and coins, capable +of feats which would have been the despair of Robert-Houdin +and of Robert Heller; and some of them are +so enamored of their own dexterity that in their eagerness +for its exhibition they lose sight of unity and +totality. As a result of this lapse from the loftier +standards of their art they present a disconcerting +huddle of sleights of hand until the amazed spectators +lose all sense of progression, as these bewildering effects +tumble over one another without any attempt at +climax. Such a performance is an empty display of +difficulty conquered for its own sake; it is only a sequence +of "stunts"; it is mere vanity and vexation of +spirit. It is like the favorite Scotch dish, the haggis, +which is said to supply only "confused feeding."</p> + +<p class="indent">It is always interesting to note how the principles of +the arts have a certain relation, and how we can +constantly discover parallels in two wholly different +fields. This abuse of dexterity in the art of modern +magic is closely akin to the abuse of toe-dancing in +the art of the ballet. As the conjurer ought to have +dexterity at his command to serve when it is needed, +so the accomplished ballet-dancer ought to be able to +walk on her toes, when this feat will fit into the scheme +of the special dance she has undertaken to perform. +But for a dancer to confine herself to the executing of +a series of difficult steps involving nothing more than +toe-dancing is to circumscribe the range of her art +and to accept as the end what ought to be only the +means. Here again, we have a frank substitution of a +single "stunt" for the larger liberty accorded by a +more intelligent understanding of the true principles +of the art. The excessive toe-work of the dancer, like +the excessive dexterity of the conjurer, is at bottom +only what boys call "showing off"; and in the long run +even boys tire of this. To descend to showing off is +equivalent to the blunder common in bad architecture, +when we cannot help seeing that the artist has gone +afield to construct his ornament, instead of concentrating +his effort on ornamenting his construction.</p> + +<p class="indent">So far from permitting himself ever to show off, or +to invite attention to his own skill, the master of modern +magic is careful always to conceal as far as possible +the method by which he accomplishes his wonders. +He utilizes at will and in conjunction ingenious apparatus +and manual dexterity, without ever calling the +attention of the spectators to either. He refrains even +from turning up his sleeves or from passing for special +examination any of the objects he is employing, while +taking care to let it be seen accidentally that these objects +are really above suspicion. Like the playwright +constructing a play, the composer of an experiment in +magic must ever keep in mind his audience; and he +must strive always to foresee the exact impression he +is making upon the spectators. Like the playwright, +the modern magician must so build up each of his experiments +that it seizes the attention of the spectators +early, that it arouses their interest, that it holds this +interest unrelaxed to the end, and that at last it satisfies +while it surprises. This can be achieved only when +all the elements of the experiment, the idea itself, the +plot, the dexterous devices, and the ingenious apparatus +which may be necessary, are all so combined and controlled +and harmonized as to leave on the memory of +the audience a clear and consistent impression—indeed, +an impression so sharp that a majority of those who +witnessed the experiment could describe it the next +day.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is the disadvantage of the empty display of dexterity +for its own sake that fails to leave this definite +deposit in the memory; and the spectators are quite +unable to recall the central effect. This is generally +because there was, in fact, no central effect for them to +seize, the performer having scattered his efforts, as tho +he were using a shot-gun instead of hitting the bull's-eye +with a single rifle-shot. The master of the art is +careful to economize the attention of his audience, to +focus it, so to speak, and to arrange his sequence of +effects so adroitly that, however multifarious and even +complicated may be the means whereby he is achieving +his object, the result is attained so directly and so +simply that it can be apprehended by the spectators +readily and instantly. The experiment has been exhibited +as tho it were the easiest thing in the world, +even if it is at the same time perceived to be the most +impossible to account for. To arrive at this result the +performer must preserve an absolute simplicity of +manner; he presents himself as a gentleman amusing +himself by amusing other gentlemen, who have come +together at his invitation to be amused.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">A gentleman amusing other gentlemen—that should +be the ideal; and this ideal not only forbids any foolish +clowning and any trivial buffoonery on the part of the +performer, but it prohibits also any attempt on his +part to incite the gentlemen he is amusing to laugh at +any one of their own number who may have been kind +enough to lend a hat or a watch, or to come up on the +stage as a volunteer assistant by request. Nothing is +cheaper, and nothing is in worse taste, than for the +performer to make personal remarks about any member +of his audience or to hold any one of the spectators +up to ridicule. The conjurer is a comedian playing +the part of a modern magician, but he is not a low-comedian, +ready to get a laugh at any price and at +the cost of any one else. He may be as pleasant as +he can, and even as humorous, but he can preserve his +own self-respect only by having due regard to the self-respect +of all those who have gathered to enjoy his +performance. Readers of Robert-Houdin's memoirs +will remember how one of the old-school performers used +to advertise that he would Eat a Man Alive, and how +he sprinkled flour and pepper and salt all over the +hapless creature who volunteered to be devoured, and +then proceeded to bite the finger of the disgusted and +unfortunate victim. This is "most tolerable and not +to be endured."</p> + +<p class="indent">If a demand were to be made for a list of the books +likely to be the most useful to those who desire to +master the principles of the art of modern magic, one +would have to begin by recommending the preliminary +perusal of the autobiography of Robert-Houdin, from +which a host of useful hints may be gleaned. The +Frenchman tells us, for instance, how he once showed +off before Torrini and exhibited his manipulative skill +over a pack of cards, making a needless display of +dexterity, designed to dazzle the eyes of the spectators; +and how Torrini pointed out the futility and the disadvantage +of this. Then it would be well to consult +the invaluable series of volumes on modern magic by +"Professor Hoffman" wherein the various tricks and +sleights and apparatus are described and illustrated. +These books contain what may be called the raw material +of the art, the processes which the magician can +employ at will in building up his larger experiments in +magic, each of which should be a complete play in itself. +Finally, when the student has found out how +tricks can be done, he would do well to turn his attention +to 'Our Magic,' by Mr. Maskelyne and his associate, +Mr. David Devant. And from this logical treatise +he can learn how experiments in magic ought to be +composed. It is from this admirable discussion of the +basic principles of modern magic that several of the +points made in this essay have been borrowed.</p> + +<p class="indent">Mr. Devant calls attention to the fact that new +tricks are common, new manipulative devices, new examples +of dexterity, and new applications of science, +whereas new plots, new ideas for effective presentation, +are rare. He describes a series of experiments of his +own, some of which utilize again, but in a novel manner, +devices long familiar, while others are new both in +idea and in many of the subsidiary methods of execution. +One of the most hackneyed and yet one of the +most effective illusions in the repertory of the conjurer, +is that known as the Rising Cards. The performer +brings forward a pack of cards, several of which are +drawn by members of the audience and returned to the +pack, whereupon at the command of the magician they +rise out of the pack, one after the other, in the order in +which they were drawn. In the oldest form in which +this illusion is described in the books on the art of +magic, the pack is placed in a case supported by a rod +standing on a base; and the secret of the trick lies in +this rod and its base. The rod is really a hollow tube, +and the base is really an empty box. The tube is +filled with sand, on the top of which rests a leaden +weight, to which is attached a thread so arranged over +and under certain cards as to cause the chosen cards +to rise when it descends down the tube; and in putting +the cards into the case the conjurer releases a valve +at the bottom of the tube, so that the sand might +escape into the box, whereby the weight is lowered, +the thread then doing its allotted work, and the cards +ascending into view, no matter how far distant from +them the performer may be standing when he achieves +his miracle.</p> + +<p class="indent">It seems likely that the invention of this primitive +apparatus may have been due to the fact that some +eighteenth-century conjurer happened to observe the +sand running out of an hour-glass, and set about to +find some means whereby this escape of sand could be +utilized in his art. The hollow rod, the escaping sand, +and the descending weight have long since been discarded; +but the illusion of the Rising Cards survives +and is now performed in an unending variety of ways. +The pack may be held in the hand of the performer, +without the use of any case; or it may be placed in a +glass goblet; or it may be tied together with a ribbon +and thus suspended from cords that swing to and +fro almost over the heads of the spectators, and however +they may be isolated, the chosen cards rise obediently +when they are bidden. The original effect subsists, +even tho the devices differ.</p> + +<p class="indent">It was left for Mr. Devant to give a new twist to +this old illusion. For a full pack of playing-cards he +substituted ten cards two or three times larger than +playing-cards, and with the ten numerals printed or +painted in bold black. These pasteboards are given +for examination, and so is a case into which they fit. +After they have been duly inspected they are put into +the case which is hung from chains. A clean slate is +also shown, and wrapped up and given to a spectator +to hold. Then three members of the audience are invited +to write each a number composed of three figures, +and these three numbers are added by a fourth +spectator. The total is found to be written on the +slate; and then at the behest of the performer the +cards containing the figures of this total rise in proper +sequence out of the case. It may be noted that the +writing on the slate is also an old and well-worn device, +and so is the method of making sure that the +total of the three numbers written by different persons +shall agree with that already concealed on the slate. +Yet these three familiar effects are here united in a +refreshingly novel experiment in magic, being now +fitted into a new plot. The devices themselves are old +enough, but Mr. Devant is entitled to full credit for +the new combination.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">The fundamental principles which Robert-Houdin +accepted and which he seems to have taken over from +Torrini, Messrs. Maskelyne and Devant have elucidated +in their philosophic disquisition, and yet in one +particular their practise is not yet level with their +preaching. Before Robert-Houdin and Frikell, or at +least before Torrini, and even after these three artists +had set a better example, the majority of conjurers +filled the stage with gaudy apparatus and insisted on +its blazing with an unnecessary prodigality of lights. +One magician in the middle of the nineteenth century +came forward on a stage absolutely dark, and suddenly +fired a pistol, thereby lighting two hundred candles +arranged in pyramids behind him. Another hung his +stage with black velvet and adorned it with skulls. +Torrini and Robert-Houdin made an approach to the +unadorned simplicity of an actual drawing-room, altho +Robert-Houdin seems to have permitted himself a long +shelf at the back of his stage on which his various automatic +figures were assembled awaiting their summons +to take part in the program. Even Messrs. Maskelyne +and Devant are satisfied with a stage-setting which is +frankly only a stage-setting—as stagy, in fact, as the +ordinary scenery to be seen in a variety-show.</p> + +<p class="indent">Now, it may be admitted that a nondescript set of +this sort, vaguely Oriental, with arches and curtains, +and somewhat suggestive of comic opera, may not be +inappropriate when any one of the bolder illusions is to +be presented—the Box Trick or the Aerial Suspension, +the Mystic Cabinet or the Talking Sphinx. Indeed, +a special set of scenery is often actually necessary for +the presentation of marvels depending mainly on optics +or mechanics. But for the first part of the program, +when the performer appears in ordinary evening-dress, +and when he is presenting himself as a gentleman +in a drawing-room, amusing other gentlemen, by means +of experiments in magic, every one of which may be +likened to a little play, why should not the stage-set +be that of a drawing-room, or of a bachelor's study, as +accurately reproduced as similar rooms are reproduced +in the modern comedies of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones +and Mr. Augustus Thomas? The set accepted by +Messrs. Maskelyne and Devant is devoid of the actuality +of a real room; it is fantastically stagy, and therefore +it lacks both veracity and dignity.</p> + +<p class="indent">Sooner or later some modern magician, in advance +over his rivals, will take this final step, and the curtain +will rise on a stage with a box-set realistically reproducing +a handsome room, with all its decorations and hangings +and furniture in harmony, Jacobean in style, or +Chippendale, as the performer's preference may be. +There will be chairs and tables in their proper places; +there will be book-cases, and window-boxes of flowers; +and perhaps there will be a cellaret, where the performer +may procure any goblet or decanter he needs. +There will be a broad desk in the center, with its writing-pad +and its book-rack, and possibly its heap of magazines +and weekly papers. This set thus furnished will +look like a room that has really been lived in; it will +have a door in each of the side walls, and when the +curtain rises the stage will be empty. Then the doorbell +will ring, and the servant will enter at one door, +and, going across the stage to the other, he will admit +his master—the master at last of the truly modern art +of magic. The magician will give his hat and coat +to the servant, who will take them out, and who will +never appear on the stage again except in response to +the master's pressure on the electric button, ordinarily +used to summon a servant. And the magician will +present his succession of experiments in magic, utilizing +only the objects which he may borrow from the +spectators, or which would naturally be found in a +gentleman's room. The apparent absence of all apparatus, +the naturalness of the environment, the easy +simplicity and the convincing reality of the back-ground—all +these elements will coalesce to heighten +the effect of the marvels to be wrought by a comedian +playing the part of a magician.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">XVI<br /> +THE LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY OF<br /> +PUNCH AND JUDY<a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY OF PUNCH AND +JUDY<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> we consider how cosmopolitan is the population +of these United States, and how freely we have drawn +upon all the races of Europe, it is very curious that +the puppet-show does not flourish in our American +cities as it flourishes in many of the towns on the other +side of the Western Ocean. The shrill squeak of +Punch is not infrequent in the streets of London—altho +it may not now be heard as often as it was +a score of years ago. In Paris in the gardens of +the Tuileries and of the Luxembourg, and again in the +Champs-Elysées where the children congregate in the +afternoon, there are nearly half a dozen enclosures +roped off and provided with cane chairs so that spectators, +old and young, may be gladdened by the vision +of Polichinelle, and by the pranks of Guignol. Yet +even in Paris there are not now as many puppet-shows +as there were fifty years ago; and in Italy and in Germany +the traveler fails to find as frequent exhibitions +of this sort as he used to meet with in the years that +are gone. Apparently there is everywhere a waning +interest in the plays performed by the little troop of +personages animated by the thumb and fingers of the +invisible performer. And perhaps the declining vogue +of this diminutive drama in old Europe is one reason +why it has never achieved a wide popularity in young +America.</p> + +<p class="indent">In France the puppet-show is stationary; it has its +fixed habitation and abode; and its lovers can easily +discover where to find it when they seek the specific +pleasure it alone can provide. In England the spectacle +of Punch and Judy is ambulatory; the bloodthirsty +hero and the bereaved heroine roam the streets +at large, and their arrival in any one avenue of traffic +can never be predicted with certainty. In the United +States poor Punch has never ventured to show his +face in the open street, seeking the suffrages of the +casual throng; he is not peripatetic but intermittent, +and he makes his appearances only in private houses, +and only when he is sent for specially to entertain the +children's party. Here in America Punch is still a +stranger to the broad public; he has an exotic flavor; +he suggests Dickens, somehow; and he must be wholly +unknown to countless thousands who would rejoice to +make his acquaintance and to laugh at his terrible +deeds.</p> + +<p class="indent">His terrible deeds!—perhaps there is in these words +a possible explanation for the failure of Punch to win +favor among the descendants of the Puritans, who are +always inclined to apply severe moral standards of +conduct. Now, if we apply any moral standard at all +to the conduct of Mr. Punch, the result is simply appalling, +for the customary drama of which he is the sole +hero sets before us a story of triumphant villainy, adequately +to be compared only with the dastardly history +of Richard III in Shakspere's melodramatic tragedy. +Mr. Punch is an accessory before the fact in the death +of his infant child, and when his devoted wife very naturally +remonstrates with him, he turns upon her with +invective and violence—a violence which culminates +in assassination. Having once seen red and tasted +blood, he finds himself swiftly started upon a career +of crime. His total depravity tempts him to a startling +succession of hideous murders. He slays an inoffensive +negro, a harmless clown, and a worthy policeman. +Then he succeeds, by a simple trick, in hanging the +hangman himself. By his fatal assaults upon these +two officers of justice, the necessary policeman and the +useful hangman, Mr. Punch exhibits his contempt for +the majesty of the law. He stands forth, without a +shred of conscience, as a practical anarchist, rejecting +all authority. His hand is against every man and every +man's hand is against him. And having violated the +laws of this world, he finally discloses his callous contempt +for the punishment which ought to await him +in the next world; he has a hand-to-hand fight with the +devil himself—a deadly struggle from which he emerges +victorious. And this is the end, which crowns the +work.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_315" id="image_315"></a> +<img src="images/i_315.png" alt="Behind the scenes + +Punch throws away the child + +Punch, Judy, and their child + +Punch quiets Judy" title="Behind the scenes + +Punch throws away the child + +Punch, Judy, and their child + +Punch quiets Judy" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">When we consider the several episodes of Mr. Punch's +abhorrent history, we are reluctantly forced to the conclusion +that his story is even less informed with morality +than that of Richard III. The crookbacked king +comes to a bad end at last; he meets with the just +retribution for his many misdeeds; and he falls before +the sword of Richmond. But Mr. Punch comes to a +good end, and so far as we may know, he lives happy +ever after, like the princes and princesses of the fairytales. +He may even marry again and have another +child, to be made away with in its turn. The more +we consider his misdeeds and his misadventures the +more shocking they are to our moral sense. Mr. +Punch appears as a monster of such hideous mien that +to be hated he needs but to be seen. This is how he +must appear to every one of us who applies a moral +standard to the drama, and who is willing to hold +every character in a play to a strict accountability for +his words and deeds. If we apply this moral standard +to the play of Punch and Judy, then that play must be +dismissed as profoundly and hopelessly immoral, carrying +ethical infection to all who are so unfortunate as +to be spectators at its performance. And more particularly, +it is an absolutely unfit piece for the young, +whose immature minds need to be guarded against +everything which might tend to confuse the delicate +distinctions between right and wrong.</p> + +<p class="indent">But, of course, we do not apply a moral standard to +the sayings and doings of Mr. Punch, for the plain and +sufficient reason that he is not a human being. He is +not a man and a brother, upon whom we may be +tempted to pattern ourselves. He is but a six-inch +puppet, a thing of shreds and patches, a wooden-headed +doll, vitalized for a moment only by the hand +concealed inside his flimsy body with its flaunting +colors. He is too fantastic, too impossible, too unreal, +too unrelated to any possible world, for us to feel called +upon to frown upon his misdeeds or to take them seriously. +He is a joke, and we know that he is a joke, +and all the children know that he is only a joke. Even +the youngest child is never tempted to believe in his +existence and to be moved to follow his example or +to imitate his dark deeds. The proof of the pudding +is in the eating; and the proof of a play is in the effect +it produces upon the spectators. We may question +whether any one of the millions of performances of +the lamentable tragedy of Mr. Punch has suggested +to a single father the fatal neglect of his offspring or +to a single husband the possibility of wife-murder. +And we may doubt whether any child, after witnessing +Mr. Punch's murderous combats with the policeman +and the devil, has ever felt any lessening of his respect +for those two time-honored guardians of law and order.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_319" id="image_319"></a> +<img src="images/i_319.png" alt="Punch on his steed + +Punch teaches Jack Ketch how to +hang a man + +Punch in prison + +Punch kills the Devil" title="Punch on his steed + +Punch teaches Jack Ketch how to +hang a man + +Punch in prison + +Punch kills the Devil" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">The plea of confession and avoidance which is here +set up for Punch and Judy is much the same as that +set up by Charles Lamb for the frolicsome Restoration +comedies. Lamb admitted that they were degradingly +immoral—if you took them seriously and +accepted them as pictures of life. But he insisted that +they were not really amenable to this moral standard, +since they were plainly impossible in any world known +to man. Macaulay had no difficulty in showing that +Lamb was judging others by his clever and sophisticated +self. To Lamb the creatures of Wycherley and +Congreve might reveal manners and customs which +removed them from the sphere of recognizable humanity; +but the majority of his fellow-spectators were not +so nimble-witted; they saw characters on the stage +personated by living performers, and they beheld these +characters shamelessly doing shameful things. Because +the persons in the play were represented by actual +human beings they seemed indisputably human; and +their deeds could not be considered as outside morality. +Yet the plea made by Lamb for the Restoration comedies +has a certain validity when it is put forward in +behalf of Mr. Punch. He is not personated by an +actual human being; and even the least sophisticated +of juvenile spectators does not accept him as a fellow-creature +strictly amenable to the human code.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">Historians of the Greek drama have often commented +on the fact that the Athenian actors wore towering +masks, and that thereby they were deprived of all facial +expression. In our snug modern theaters, with their +well-lighted stages, we follow with our eyes the shifting +emotions as these chase each other across the faces +of the actors; and this is one of our keenest pleasures +in the playhouse. In the huge theater of Dionysius at +Athens, with its ten or twenty thousand spectators, +seated tier on tier, along the curving hillside of the +Acropolis, the actor was too far removed from most +of the playgoers for any play of feature to be visible; +and critics have commiserated the Attic dramatists +on their deprivation of this element of potent appeal. +Yet the question arises whether the Greek playwrights +were really the losers by this immobility of the actors' +faces; and we may be allowed to doubt that they were +when we recall the fact that the faces of Mr. Punch +and of Mrs. Judy, of the policeman and of the hangman, +are also fixed once for all. The expression that +Mr. Punch wears when he is fondling the baby is, perforce, +the same which illuminates his face when he is +engaged in joyful combat with the devil, a foeman +worthy of his stick. Here the imagination of the spectator +comes to the rescue. The wooden head of Mr. +Punch is unchanging, no doubt; but those who gaze +entranced upon his marvelous doings never miss the +play of feature which they would expect if they were +part of the audience in a playhouse for grown-ups. +Quite possibly the Athenian spectators did not mind +the immobility of the masks their actors wore; indeed, +that very immobility may have been an incentive to +their imaginations. When the Greeks went to their +open-air theater, as when we gather around the tent-like +theater of Mr. Punch, they knew in advance, as +we also know, that the faces of the performers would +be unchanging; therefore they did not expect any +variety of expression; and probably they got along as +well without it as we do at a puppet-show.</p> + +<p class="indent">There is another likeness between Attic tragedy and +Punch and Judy; there is a limitation in the number +of characters we are allowed to see at the same time. +As the hidden performer who operates all the figures +has only two hands, he can bring before us at any one +moment only Mr. Punch and one other of the several +characters. The fingers of the right hand animate +Mr. Punch, and the fingers of the left hand animate +in turn Mrs. Judy and the negro and the clown. At +Athens (for reasons which need not here be discussed) +the dramatist had the use of only three actors, even +tho these might each of them "double" and appear +as two or more of the successive characters of the play. +So it was that there were never more than three persons +taking part in any given episode of an Attic tragedy +as there are never more than two persons taking +part in any given episode of Punch and Judy. In +the thumb-and-finger plays devised in Paris by M. +Lemercier de Neuville, he felt so severely the inconvenience +of his limitation to two characters that he +devised a kind of spiral-spring arrangement inside +the costumes of his little figures to hold up their +heads; and he prepared invisible supports jutting out +just below the flat ledge which forms the base of the +proscenium. Thus he was enabled to leave the figure +in sight, while he withdrew his hand to animate another +character. His <i>Pupazzi</i>, as he called them, were +clever caricatures of contemporary celebrities; and he +was ingenious enough sometimes to maneuver half a +dozen of them at once with his single pair of hands, +four adjusted into the projecting rests, and two on his +fingers.</p> + +<p class="indent">In the sumptuous puppet-show in the gardens of the +Tuileries the same result is achieved by the employment +of two or three manipulators, so that four or +even six figures may appear at once. This has greatly +enlarged the scope of the performance; and the manager +of this theater has very ambitious aims. He likes +to rearrange for his juvenile audience the most appropriate +of the pieces which have won favor in the real +theaters, and to present these with all sorts of spectacular +adornments. He has even ventured to give +plays as elaborate as 'Around the World in Eighty +Days.' But it may be doubted whether this vaulting +ambition has not overleaped itself, and whether a +puppet-show does not gain rather than lose by restricting +its efforts within narrower limits. After all, +nothing so delights us at a puppet-show as the feats +which are most characteristic and least difficult of +accomplishment. We joy to behold one tiny figure +belaboring another with his solid club or to follow the +vicissitudes of a bout at single-stick, when both combatants +thwack lustily at each other's wooden heads.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">Yet this mention of M. Lemercier de Neuville's +<i>Pupazzi</i>, with their varied repertory of Aristophanic +commentaries on current events, and this memory of +the spectacular efforts exhibited in the gardens of the +Tuileries, suggest a possible explanation for the fact +that Punch and Judy have failed to find wide-spread +favor here in America and that they seem to be losing +their pristine popularity in England. There is a pitiable +monotony of program in all English-speaking +puppet-shows. They confine their repertory to the +single play which sets forth the deeds and misdeeds of +Mr. Punch. Now, in the Continent of Europe there +is no such monotony. Not only in the gardens of the +Tuileries but in the Champs-Elysées a young spectator +can sit thru performance after performance without +fear of having to witness the same piece. Punch +appears in only one drama, whereas his French rival, +Guignol, in his time plays many parts, with a host of +other characters to be his associates, some in one +piece and some in another. And the several plays +are adorned with a variety of scenery. Of course, there +cannot be a very wide range of subject; and always is +the stick a prominent feature in the miniature drama. +There are a certain number of traditional Guignol +pieces, handed down from generation to generation. +Some of these have been printed for the use of devoted +students of the drama, and some are to be had in little +pamphlets for the benefit of the happy French children +who may have had a puppet theater with its dozen +or more figures presented to them as a New Year's +gift. There is in the Dramatic Museum of Columbia +University the manuscript of half a dozen of these little +plays, written out (in all the license of his own simplified +spelling) by the incomparable performer who was +in charge of the leading Guignol in the Champs-Elysées +in 1867.</p> + +<p class="indent">It is rather curious that the English puppet-show +should have confined itself for now nearly a hundred +years to the unique Punch and Judy, when the puppet-shows +of other countries have a changing repertory. +It was a puppet performance of a German perversion +of Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus' which first introduced +Goethe to the Faust legend. George Sand, unlike the +great German poet in most ways, was yet like him +in her delight in the puppet-show. In her country +place at Nohant, she had a tiny theater of her own +for which she dressed all the puppets, while her son +Maurice carved the heads, painted the scenery, devised +the plays, and improvised the dialog. Maurice Sand +it was, sometimes alone, but occasionally with the aid +of a friend, who manipulated the little figures and bestowed +upon them a momentary vitality. His mother +persuaded him to write out a dozen of the more successful +of his little plays for puppets and to publish +them; and this volume, the 'Théâtre des Marionnettes +à Nohant,' appeared in 1876. George Sand herself +wrote a delightful account of the humble beginnings +of this famous puppet-show, and described how there +came in time to be all sorts of ingenious improvements +for achieving spectacular effects.</p> + +<p class="indent">She declared that the puppet-show is not what it +is vainly thought, because it demands an art of a +special kind, not only in the construction of the little +figures themselves, but more especially in the story +which these little figures are to interpret. She held +that the particular field of the puppet playwright-performer +was to be found in the dramatization of +protracted fantastic romances, abounding in comic +characters and in comic episodes and gratifying the +fundamental human liking for long-drawn tales of +adventure and for fantastic fairy-stories. She found +in her son's acted narratives a rest from reality, a release +from the oppression of every-day life, an excursion +into a realm of fancy and of legend—even if the +legend was itself a fanciful invention of the improvising +performer. And she declared that she liked the +puppet playhouse in her own home, because it was a +domestic and fireside pleasure, which could be enjoyed +without the exertion imposed by a visit to a real +theater. Obviously she found as much delight in +being a spectator—after having been a costumer—as +her son did in being the author and operator of the +spectacle.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">There is one note to be made upon George Sand's +account of the slow development of the puppet-show +at Nohant, beginning as early as 1847. If you will +look at any set of Punch and Judy figures hung up +to-day in the toy store to tempt the eye of Young +America, you will discover alongside Mr. Punch and +Mrs. Judy, Jack Ketch and the Devil, a strange green +figure with huge jaws and double rows of white teeth. +This verdant beast has a body like all other Punch and +Judy figures, a loose cloth funnel to slip over the sleeve +of the operator; but its head suggests the head of an +alligator, or of a crocodile, or of a dragon. Now, if +you will turn to the classic text of the English play of +Punch and Judy, edited with a learned introduction +and an abundance of scholarly annotation by John +Payne Collier—at least, so it is believed, altho the +rare little book is anonymous—you will find no mention +of any strange beast of this sort. Collier's text +of the play is adorned by two dozen illustrations, +etched by George Cruikshank, and in no one of these +plates will you discover any crocodile, or alligator, or +dragon. You will find Toby, the dog, who still survives +in most of the few shows to be seen to-day in +the streets of London; and you will find Hector, the +gallant steed that Mr. Punch mounts with difficulty—and +it is sad to have to record that Hector is no longer +in the service of Mr. Punch. In fact, one devoted admirer +of puppet-shows, whose memory goes back +nearly fifty years, is ready to declare that he has never +laid eyes on Hector—except in Cruikshank's illustrations. +But Mr. Punch, deprived of the privilege of +bestriding Hector, now enjoys the fiercer delight of +overcoming the green-eyed alligator.</p> + +<p class="indent">Here we have a question of profound historic interest. +Whence came the strange beast with the wide +jaws? And here is where George Sand's pleasant paper +is a very present help in time of need. She tells us +that her son besought her to make a green monster +for one of the earliest pieces he devised for her puppet-figures. +She did as she was bid, and she sacrificed a +pair of blue velvet slippers to provide the marvelous +creature with his gently smiling jaws. She draws attention +to the fact that the slippers were blue, and to +the further fact that nevertheless the strange beast +was always called the Green Monster. And here may +be the explanation of the historic mystery. The fame +of the puppets of Nohant was borne abroad; they +were talked about all thru France; and they were +discussed again and again in the Parisian newspapers. +What more likely than that one of the professional +puppet players should have seen the infinite possibilities +of the Green Monster, and should have perceived +its novel fascination for children? Thereupon he +borrowed it for his own performances. Certainly it is +that the Green Monster is a character in at least one +of the manuscript plays preserved in the Dramatic +Museum of Columbia University, and written out +half a century ago. Probably the Green Monster +strayed from the puppet-show of the Champs-Elysées +sooner or later to one of the toy stores of Paris at the +request of some boy who desired it for his own. When +the Green Monster had elected domicile in the stores +of Paris, he was soon appropriated by the toy-makers +of Germany for export to Great Britain and the United +States.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">XVII<br /> +THE PUPPET-PLAY, PAST AND PRESENT<a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE PUPPET-PLAY, PAST AND PRESENT<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> her charming and instructive account of the ingenious +puppet-shows with which her son Maurice used +to amuse himself and her guests at Nohant half a century +ago, George Sand records the fact that the erudite +scholar, Magnan, who wrote a learned history of the +puppet-show from the remotest antiquity, did not discriminate +sharply between the two entirely different +kinds of little figures, both of which are carelessly called +puppets in English, and marionettes in French. One +class comprises these empty and flexible figures which +are animated by the thumb and two fingers of the performer +who exhibits them by holding his hands above +his head, as in the 'Punch and Judy' show. The other +contains the larger dolls, suspended on wires (which +are supposed to be invisible) and manipulated by one +or more performers overhead, who give life to these +figures by jerking the various strings as the action of +the play may require. These last are the true marionettes; +and for the first we have, unfortunately, no distinctive +name. It is greatly to be regretted that the +two very different types of puppets are not set apart +from each other satisfactorily by the contributor of +the article on marionettes in the latest edition of the +'Encyclopedia Britannica.'</p> + +<p class="indent">Each of these two sorts of puppets has an interest +of its own; and each of them has its special and peculiar +relation to the drama. Both of them have a long and +honorable history, and can be traced back in the scanty +records of a remote antiquity; altho it seems more +likely that the true marionette—the little figure moved +by wires from overhead—is the older of the two, +antedating by many centuries the Punch and Judy figure, +which owes its abrupt and awkward movements +to the human thumb and fingers. Both classes are +to be found to-day all over the world, not only in the +cities of civilization, but in unsuspected nooks and +corners on all the shores of all the seven seas. In +Turkey, for example, under the name of Karaguez, +there is a Punch and Judy of enormous popularity and +of doubtful decency, while in Siam there are marionettes +which perform religious plays of traditional appeal. +Apparently the puppet-show of one type or the +other satisfies in its fashion that dramatic instinct +which every people possesses in greater or less intensity.</p> + +<p class="indent">Both kinds of puppet-show flourish in France, and +have there been lifted to a more elevated plane of art; +and both kinds retain their popularity in Italy, altho +in an humbler form. The French are inveterate artists; +and they are like the Greeks in desiring to do all +things decently and in order. The Italians have, perhaps, +a stronger native gift for the drama and they +are ready to enjoy a simpler and more primitive puppet-play. +It is from Italy that we who speak English +have derived our Punch and Judy. Mr. Punch is a +direct descendant of that favorite figure of robust +Neapolitan farce, Pulcinella; and so is the French Polichinelle. +And in Italy to-day the true marionettes +have an even broader popularity than the Punch and +Judy figures. The Italians who have lately flocked to +America in their thousands, until New York now contains +more of them than Venice, have imported in the +original package the legendary puppet-show setting +forth the romantic stories of the Middle Ages and of +the early Renascence. We look upon Mr. Punch as +comic; but the Italians take their pleasure seriously +and the marionettes in their puppet-shows to be seen +in New York are truly heroic, and not infrequently +highly tragic.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_335" id="image_335"></a> +<img src="images/i_335.png" alt="Roman puppets + +Greek and Roman puppets + +Puppet of Java" title="Roman puppets + +Greek and Roman puppets + +Puppet of Java" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">In the interesting discussion of 'Medieval Story,' in +which Professor W. W. Lawrence of Columbia University +has traced the influence of various ideals of the +Middle Ages upon our modern social organization, he +has a striking description of the marionette performances +which the exiles of Italy have brought with them +to America. "Any one who walks thru the Italian +quarter of New York City in the evening may notice +over a doorway an illuminated sign, 'Theater of Marionettes.' +If his curiosity tempts him inside, into the +low room crowded with enthusiastic spectators, he will +see, on a rude stage, a group of puppets almost as large +as life, representing knights and ladies, acting out a +little drama in response to the jerking of strings fastened +to their arms, and of iron rods firmly fixed in +their heads. The warriors are gorgeously attired in +shining armor and plumed helmets; and the ladies +have wonderful costumes of bright colors, with a great +deal of embroidery and decoration. An Italian in +shirt-sleeves in the wings at the side of the stage +speaks their lines for them, with all the elocutionary +flourishes which he can command. Fiercely immobile +as to expression, but most active as to arms and legs, +these manikins march about, soliloquize, make love, +and debate in council. But it is their battles which +arouse the greatest enthusiasm among the audience; +and, indeed, these are fought in a way that is a joy to +see. Then it is that heroic deeds are done—tin swords +resound upon tin armor, helmets are battered about +and knocked off, dust rises from the field, the valiant +dead fall in staring heaps. At such moments the spectators +can hardly restrain themselves from emotion, +yet the story is well known to them—perhaps some +one sitting near by will volunteer to explain it, asserting +that he has known it ever since he was a boy and +that he has read it all in a book which he has at home, +called 'Reali di Franci.' It is a version of the old tale +of Charlemagne and his knights, which, after traveling +far from its native home in France, was taken up by +the Italian people many centuries ago, and made so +much their own that few heroes have been closer to +their hearts than Roland, or as they call him, Orlando. +Even in their homes in the New World they still celebrate +him, so that the very newsboys in the streets of +modern America are keeping alive the heroic traditions +of the age of Charlemagne."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_339" id="image_339"></a> +<img src="images/i_339.png" alt="" title="" /><br /> +<span class="caption">A Sicilian marionette show +From "By Italian Seas," by Ernest C. Peixotto</span> +</div> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">When we compare the account which Professor Lawrence +has here given of the Italian puppet-shows in +New York with the description of these same performances +in their native land half a century ago, which we +find in the 'Roba di Roma' of W. W. Story, the American +sculptor-poet, we perceive that there has been +little modification of method in the past threescore +years. Story studied all sides of the Roman populace, +and he maintained that nothing was more characteristically +Italian than the marionette theater. He tells +us that the love for the acting of <i>burattini</i> [or puppets] +is universal among the lower classes thruout Italy, +and in some cities, especially in Genoa, no pains are +spared "in their costume, construction, and movement +to render them lifelike. They are made of wood, generally +from two to three feet in height, with very large +heads, and supernatural glaring eyes that never wink, +and are clad in all the splendor of tinsel, velvet, and +steel. Their joints are so flexible that the least weight +or strain upon them effects a dislocation, and they are +moved by wires attached to their heads and extremities. +The largest are only about half the height of a +man, yet as the stage and all the appointments and +scenery are upon the same scale of proportion, the eye +is soon deceived, and accepts them as of life-size. But +if by accident a hand or arm of one of the wire-pullers +appears from behind the scenes or descends below the +hangings, it startles you by its portentous size; and +the audience in the stage-boxes instead of reducing +the <i>burattini</i> to Lilliputians by contrast, as they lean +forward, become themselves Brobdingnagians, with +elephantine hands and heads."</p> + +<p class="indent">Story insisted that there is nothing ludicrous to an +Italian audience in the performances of these diminutive +men and women. On the contrary, nothing is more +serious both to the spectators and to the unforeseen +operators. In fact, he declared, no human being could +be so serious as these tiny performers. "Their countenances +are as solemn as death, and more unchanging +than the face of a clock. Their terrible gravity when, +with drooping heads and collapsed arms, they fix on +you their great goggle-eyes is at times ghastly. The +plays they perform are mostly heroic, romantic, and +historical. They stoop to nothing which is not startling +in incident, imposing in style, and grandiose in +movement. And the Italian audience listens with a +grave and profound interest, as tho the performers were +not mere puppets, but actually the heroes they are supposed +to be. The inflated and extravagant discourse +of the characters is accepted at its face value; to the +spectators it is grand and noble. And the foreign visitor +must control any desire he may feel to smile at the +extraordinary spectacle he is witnessing, and at the +marvelous rodomontade he is hearing. To laugh out +loud at one of these heroic puppet-plays would be as +indecorous as to indulge in laughter during a church +service."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_343" id="image_343"></a> +<img src="images/i_343.png" alt="A Belgian puppet + +A Chinese puppet theater + +Puppet figure representing the younger Coquelin" +title="A Belgian puppet + +A Chinese puppet theater + +Puppet figure representing the younger Coquelin" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Incidental to the heroic dramas which the puppets +play are interludes of ballet-dancing like those which +are intercalated, more or less adroitly, into the grand +opera performed by full-grown men and women. The +Italians are born pantomimists, and they are accomplished +dancers. Therefore, there is no reason for surprise +that human pantomime and human dancing are +imitated in the marionette theaters. There is reason +for surprise, however, that Story did not perceive +clearly the advantages possessed by the dancing puppets +over the dancers of more solid flesh and blood. +He found something comic in the pantomime of the +puppets, "whose every motion is effected by wires, who +imitate the gestures of despair with hands that cannot +shut, and, with a wooden gravity of countenance, +throw their bodies into terrible contortions to make +up for the lack of expression in the face." In mere +pantomime it is probable that the puppets would labor +under a serious disability, for if a performer cannot use +his voice, he needs facial expression to assist the gestures +by which only can he then convey his meaning +to the other performers and to the spectators. Perhaps +it is not too much to assert that the puppet-show +is not the proper place for pantomime.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">We need not wonder that Story admitted their dancing +to be superior to their pantomime. Yet he failed +to appreciate the true cause of this superiority, and he +was inclined to comment upon the dancing of the +<i>burattini</i> in a somewhat satiric fashion. He tells us +how the principal dancer suddenly appears, "knocks +her wooden knees together, and jerking her head +about, salutes the audience with a smile quite as +artificial as we could see in the best trained of her +fleshly rivals." But this artificial smile must have +been fixed and permanent on the features of this diminutive +dancer—or else the Roman-American essayist +merely imagined its presence. "Then, with a masterly +ease, after describing air-circles with her toes far higher +than her head and poising herself in impossible positions, +she bounds or rather flies forward with superhuman +lightness, performs feats of choreography to +awaken envy in Cerito and drive Elssler to despair, +and, poising on her pointed toe that disdains to touch +the floor, turns never-ending pirouettes on nothing at +all, till at last, throwing both her wooden hands forward, +she suddenly comes to a swift stop to receive +your applause."</p> + +<p class="indent">This description is unsympathetic, and it induces +the surmise that the operator of the <i>burattini</i> at the +performance described was not a master of his art and +did not know how to profit by the possibilities of that +art. Yet one of Story's phrases serves to explain why +the suspended puppet is superbly qualified to excel in +ballet-dancing; that phrase is the one which credits +the dancing doll with "supernatural lightness." A +skilful operator of the wires which bestow life and +movement and grace, is able to imitate easily and exquisitely +the most difficult feats of the human dancer. +If he is sufficiently adroit he robs his suspended figure +of all awkwardness, and he dowers her with a floating +ethereality surpassing that attainable by any living +performer. Now, this floating ethereality is precisely +the quality which gives us most pleasure when we +are spectators at the performance of a really fine +ballet. It is the supreme art of the great dancer to +soar lightly aloft, seeming to spurn the stage and to +abide in the air. Only very rarely is this illusion possible +to the merely human dancer; and when achieved +it is but fleeting. Yet this illusion is absolutely within +the control of the manipulator of the puppet-dancers. +He can make them execute feats of levitation, achievable +only by the most marvelously gifted and by the +most arduously trained of human dancers.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_347" id="image_347"></a> +<img src="images/i_347.png" alt="Puppets in Burma + +The puppet play of Master Peter (Italian)" title="Puppets in Burma + +The puppet play of Master Peter (Italian)" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Of course, the skilful performer must carefully avoid +swinging his tiny figures aimlessly thru the air. He +must limit the feats that he permits them to accomplish +to those which can be actually accomplished by +human beings, altho he can do easily what the human +beings can achieve only with more or less obvious +effort, and he can impart a volatile elasticity a little +beyond the power of any human being however favored +by Terpsichore. When 'Salome' was, for a +season, the sensation of the hour, it was produced by +Holden's marionettes; and it afforded a delightful +spectacle long to be remembered by all who had the +felicity of beholding it. Whatever of vulgarity or of +grossness there might be in the play itself, or in the +Dance of the Seven Veils, was purged away by the single +fact that all the performers were puppets. So dexterous +was the manipulation of the unseen operator who +controlled the wires and strings which gave life to the +seductive Salome as she circled around the stage in +most bewitching fashion, and so precise and accurate +was the imitation of a human dancer, that the receptive +spectator could not but feel that here at last the +play of doubtful propriety had found its only fit +stage and its only proper performer. The memory of +that exhibition is a perennial pleasure to all who possess +it. A thing of beauty it was; and it abides in +remembrance as a joy forever. It revealed the art of +the puppet-show at its summit. And the art itself +was eternally justified by that one performance of the +highest technical skill and of the utmost delicacy of +taste.</p> + +<p class="indent">If the most marvelous exploits of terpsichorean art, +almost inexecutable by the human toes and the human +legs of living dancers, are capable of reproduction by +puppets skilfully manipulated by the puller of the +wires and strings whereby the little figures are suspended, +so also are the dexterous feats of the juggler. +One of the specialties of the sole surviving puppet-show +of this sort in the Champs-Elysées is the performance +of a juggler who tosses aloft and catches in +turn a number of glittering balls. The delicate balancing +of the tight-rope walker, with her frequent +pirouettes on her toes, and with her surprising summersets, +is also one of the exhibitions in which the puppet +can defy the rivalry of any living executant, however +skilful in the art. At the circus we feel that the tightrope +dancer might fall, whereas at the puppet-show we +know with certainty that any fatal mishap is impossible. +In Holden's marionette program the miniature +mimicry of humanity was carried to the utmost edge +of the possible; and no item on his bill of fare was more +delectable than the series of scenes in which the traditional +Clown and Pantaloon played tricks on the +traditional Policeman, and in which they joined forces +in belaboring an inoffensive donkey. As the unfortunate +quadruped was also a puppet, there was no +painful strain on our sympathy.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">If a performance by puppets deprived 'Salome' of its +vulgar grossness by removing it outside the arena of +humanity, so to speak, and by relegating it to an unreal +world beyond the strict diocese of the conscience, +so a performance by puppets of a passion-play or of +any other drama in which the Deity has perforce to +appear as a character, is thereby relieved of any tincture +of irreverence. We no longer see a divine being +interpreted by a human being. We cannot help feeling +that all the persons in the play, whether they dwell +in heaven or on earth, are equally remote from our +common humanity. And therefore we need not be +surprised when we discover that the marionette has +long been allowed to appear in religious drama. Indeed, +it appears probable that the very name <i>marionette</i> +is directly derived from the name of the Virgin.</p> + +<p class="indent">Very early in the history of the Christian Church +were the puppets permitted to perform passion-plays +and little dramas derived from the stories contained +both in the New and the Old Testaments. In England +under Elizabeth and James religious puppet-shows of +this kind went wandering about the kingdom, taking +into the smallest villages an entertainment which would +afford to the rural inhabitants the same kind of pleasant +instruction which the dwellers in the larger towns had +in the more elaborate and long-drawn mysteries performed +by the trade-guilds on the Corpus Christi day. +That masterly rogue Autolycus in the 'Winter's Tale' +tells us that in his time he had been on the road with +"a motion of the Prodigal Son"—and a <i>motion</i> was the +Elizabethan term for a marionette-exhibition. In like +manner one of the characters in Ben Jonson's 'Every +Man out of His Humor' speaks of "a new motion of +the city of Nineveh, with Jonas and the whale." Of +course, the puppet performers, like the grown-up actors, +did not long confine themselves to sacred themes; they +ventured also into contemporary history. A puppet +showman who appears in Ben Jonson's 'Bartholomew +Fair' tells us that a certain motion setting forth the +mysterious Gunpowder Plot, was "a get-penny."</p> + +<p class="indent">Story described one puppet-play which he saw in a +little village on the main road from Rome to Naples, +and which had for its central figure Judas Iscariot. +But here again his attitude is unsympathetic, perhaps +because the performance was clumsy. "The kiss of +Judas, when, after sliding along the stage, he suddenly +turned with a sidelong jerk and rapped the other +wooden puppet's head with his own, as well as the subsequent +scene in which he goes out and hangs himself, +beggar description." Yet the expatriated American +spectator honestly recorded that the Italian spectators +"looked and listened with great gravity, seemed to be +highly edified, and certainly showed no signs of seeing +anything ludicrous in the performance." We may +venture the suggestion that even the sophisticated +sculptor-poet himself would have seen nothing ludicrous +in this performance if the operator of Judas had +been as skilful as the operator of Salome in Holden's +marionettes.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_353" id="image_353"></a> +<img src="images/i_353.png" alt="" title="" /><br /> +<span class="caption">A Neapolitan Punchinella<br /> +From "By Italian Seas," by Ernest C. Peixotto</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">A few years ago in Paris one of the younger poets +wrote a passion-play which was performed during Lent +by a company of dolls, designed and dressed in fit and +appropriate costumes by an artist friend familiar with +the manners and customs of the Holy Land. While +the wires were managed by expert hands, the words of +the dialog were spoken by the poet himself, and by +two or three other poets who came to his aid. This +must have been a seemly spectacle, and it won careful +consideration from more than one of the most eminent +dramatic critics of France. Here we may find a useful +suggestion for those who wish to see certain plays +by modern dramatic poets, in which the Deity is a +necessary character—Rostand's 'Samaritaine,' for one, +and Hauptmann's 'Hannele,' for another. Many of +the devout have a natural repugnance to any performance +on the stage (with its materialistic environment +and its often sordid conditions) which calls for the +impersonation of a divine being by an actor of ordinary +flesh and blood. Yet if these same plays were reverently +performed by marionettes the aroma of irreverence +would be removed. It might even be possible to +reproduce in the puppet-show not a little of the solemn +religious effect which is felt by all visitors to the passion-play +at Oberammergau.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">XVIII<br /> +SHADOW-PANTOMIME WITH ALL THE +MODERN IMPROVEMENTS<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2"> +SHADOW-PANTOMIME WITH ALL THE MODERN +IMPROVEMENTS<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">An</span> American; improving on a suggestion of a Frenchman, +has declared that "language was given to man to +conceal his thoughts—and to woman to express her +emotions." Unfortunately, language is so often inexact +that even when it is sufficient to express emotion, +it is not precise enough even to conceal thought. +Sometimes a term is wholly devoid of truth, as when +we call a certain solid a "lead-pencil," which contains +no lead, and when we label a certain liquid "soda-water," +which contains no soda. Sometimes the term +is so vague that it may mean all things to all men. +Who, for example, would be bold enough to insist on +his own definition of "romanticism"? Sometimes +again the term covers two or three things which demand +a sharper differentiation. This is the case with +the compound word "shadow-pantomime." It is the +only name for three distinct things.</p> + +<p class="indent">First, there is the representation by the dark profile +of the human hand upon a wall or a screen, of +human heads, and of animal figures, either by an adroit +arrangement of the fingers alone, or by the aid of adjusted +shapes of cardboard, so as to suggest a hat on +the head and a pipe in the mouth and other needed +accessories; this primitive entertainment is sometimes +styled "shadowgraphy."</p> + +<p class="indent">Second, there is the full-sized silhouette of a human +figure, due to the shadow cast by the body standing +before a lamp, and magnified or diminished as it approaches +or recedes the spectators. This is the familiar +parlor amusement which Sir James Barrie cleverly +utilized with dramatic effect in the final act of his +'Professor's Love-Story,' when one of the characters, +standing outside a house, sees the black profiles of +other characters projected clearly on the drawn shade +of the window before which he is placed.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then, thirdly, there is the true shadow-pantomime, +called by the French "Chinese shadows," <i>ombres chinoises</i>, +in which the tiny figures, made either of flat cardboard +or of metal, are exhibited behind a translucent +screen and before a strong light. This is by far the +most interesting and the most important of the three +widely different kinds of semi-dramatic entertainment, +often carelessly confounded together even in the special +treatises devoted to this humble art. In France these +Chinese shadows have been popular for more than +a hundred years, since it was in the eighteenth century +that the performer who took the name of Séraphin +established his little theater and won the favor of the +younger members of the royal family by his presentation +of the alluring spectacle, the rudimentary little +piece, still popular with children, and still known by +its original title, the 'Broken Bridge.'</p> + +<p class="indent">It may not be fanciful to infer that the immediate +suggestion for this spectacle was derived from the +contemporary vogue of the silhouette itself, this portrait +in solid black taking its name from the Frenchman +who was minister of finance in 1759. At all events, it +was in 1770 that Séraphin began to amuse the children +of Paris; and it was more than a century thereafter +that M. Lemercier de Neuville elaborated his ingeniously +articulated <i>Pupazzi noirs</i>. It was a little later +still that Caran d'Ache delighted the more sophisticated +children of a larger growth, who were wont to assemble +at the Chat Noir, with the striking series of military +silhouettes resuscitating the mighty Napoleonic epic. +And it was at the Chat Noir again that Rivière revealed +the further possibilities latent in shadow-pantomime, +and to be developed by the aid of colored +backgrounds supplied by a magic lantern. Restricted +as the sphere of the shadow-pantomime necessarily +is, the native artistic impulse of the French has been +rarely better disclosed than by their surprising elaboration +of a form of amusement, seemingly fitted only to +charm the infant mind, into an entertainment satisfactory +to the richly developed esthetic sense of mature +Parisian playgoers. Just as the rustic revels of remote +villagers contained the germ out of which the Greeks +were able to develop their austere and elevating tragedy, +and just as the modern drama was evolved in the +course of centuries out of the medieval mysteries, one +source of which we may discover in the infant Christ +in the cradle still displayed at Christmastide in Christian +churches thruout the world, so the simple Chinese +shadows of Séraphin supplied the root on which Parisian +artists were able to graft their ingenious improvements.</p> + +<p class="indent">The little spectacle proffered originally by Séraphin +was frankly infantile in its appeal, and the 'Broken +Bridge' is as plainly adjusted to the simple likings of +the child as is the lamentable tragedy of Punch and +Judy or the puppet-show in which Polichinelle exhibits +his hump and his terpsichorean agility. The two arms +of the broken bridge arch over a little stream but fail +to meet in the center. A flock of ducks crosses leisurely +from one bank to the other. A laborer appears on the +left-hand fragment of the bridge and begins to swing +his pick to loosen stones at the end, and these fragments +are then seen to fall into the water. The figure of the +workman is articulated, or at least one arm is on a +separate piece and moves on a pivot so that a hidden +string can raise the pick and let it fall. The laborer +sings at his work; and in France he indulges in the traditional +lyric about the Bridge of Avignon, where everybody +dances in a circle. Then a traveler appears on +the right-hand end of the bridge. He hails the laborer, +who is hard of hearing at first, but who finally asks +him what he wants. The traveler explains that he +wishes to cross and asks how he can do this. The +laborer keeps on picking away, and sings that "the +ducks and the geese they all swim over." The irritated +traveler then asks how far it is across, and the +laborer again sings, this time to the effect that "when +you're in the middle you're half-way over." Then +the traveler inquires how deep the stream may be, +and he gets the exasperating response in song, that +if he will only throw in a stone, he'll soon find the +bottom. This dialog bears an obvious resemblance +to that traditionally associated with the tune of the +'Arkansaw Traveler.'</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_363" id="image_363"></a> +<img src="images/i_363.png" alt="The broken bridge + +Reproduced by permission of Hachette & Co., Paris +Plan showing the construction of a shadow-picture theater + +A Hungarian dancer. This explains the +mechanism of the shadow picture opposite + +A Hungarian dancer + +From a shadow picture by Lemercier de Neuville" title="The broken bridge + +Reproduced by permission of Hachette & Co., Paris +Plan showing the construction of a shadow-picture theater + +A Hungarian dancer. This explains the +mechanism of the shadow picture opposite + +A Hungarian dancer + +From a shadow picture by Lemercier de Neuville" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Then a boatman appears, rowing his little skiff, his +backbone pivoted so that his body can move to and +fro. The traveler makes a bargain with him and is +taken across, after many misadventures, one of them +with a crocodile, which opens its jaws and threatens to +engulf the boat—this amphibious beast having been +a recent addition to the original playlet, and probably +borrowed from the Green Monster not long ago added +to the group of Punch and Judy figures. And the exciting +conclusion of this entrancing spectacle displays +a most moral application of the principle of poetic +justice. The ill-natured laborer advances too far out +on his edge of the broken bridge, and detaches a large +fragment. As this tumbles into the water he loses +his footing and falls forward himself, only to be instantly +devoured by the crocodile, which disappears +with its unexpected prey, whereupon the placid ducks +and geese again swim over—and the curtain falls.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">There are a score of other little plays like the 'Broken +Bridge,' adroitly adjusted to the caliber of the juvenile +mind. In a British collection may be found a piece +representing a succession of appalling episodes supposed +to take place in a 'Haunted House,' and in a French +manual for the use of youthful amateurs may be discovered +a rudimentary version of Molière's 'Imaginary +Invalid,' to be performed by silhouettes with articulated +limbs. Here again we perceive the inaccuracy of the +term "shadow-pantomime," since the most of the +figures are not articulated, and, being motionless, they +are deprived of the freedom of gesture which is the essential +element of true pantomime. Moreover, they +are all made to take part in various dialogs, and this +again is a negation of the fundamental principle of +pantomime, which ought to be wordless. Here the +French term "Chinese shadows" is more exact and +less limiting than the English "shadow-pantomime." +It is perhaps a pity that the old-fashioned term +"gallanty-show," has not won a wider acceptance in +English.</p> + +<p class="indent">The little pieces due to Séraphin and his humble +followers in France and in England, devised to amuse +children only, were simple enough in plot, and yet they +were sufficient to suggest to admirers of this unpretending +form of theatrical art plays of a more imposing proportion. +M. Paul Eudel, the art critic, has published +an amply illustrated volume in which he collected +the fairy-pieces, and the more spectacular melodramas +composed by his grandfather in the first quarter of +the nineteenth century, in the dark days that preceded +Waterloo. And in the third quarter of the nineteenth +century, in the dark days that preceded Sedan, M. +Lemercier de Neuville, relinquishing for a while the +Punch and Judy puppets which he called <i>Pupazzi</i>, and +which he had exhibited in a succession of gentle caricatures +of Parisian personalities with a mildly Aristophanic +flavor of contemporary satire, turned to the +familiar Chinese shadows of his childhood and devised +what he called his <i>Pupazzi noirs</i>, animated shadows. +He also has issued a collection of these little pieces +with a full explanation of the method of performance +and with half a hundred illustrations, revealing all +the secrets of maneuvering the little figures. Indeed, +Lemercier de Neuville's manual is the most ample +which has yet appeared; and it is the most interesting +in that he was at once his own playwright, his own +designer of figures, and his own performer.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_367" id="image_367"></a> +<img src="images/i_367.png" alt="The return from the Bois de Boulogne +Four shadow pictures by Caran d'Ache + +The ballet +From a shadow picture by Lemercier de Neuville +Reproduced by permission of Hachette & Co., Paris + +A regiment of French soldiers +From a shadow picture by R. de La Nézière" title="The return from the Bois de Boulogne +Four shadow pictures by Caran d'Ache + +The ballet +From a shadow picture by Lemercier de Neuville + +Reproduced by permission of Hachette & Co., Paris + +A regiment of French soldiers + +From a shadow picture by R. de La Nézière" /> +</div> + +<p class="indent">As the grandfather of M. Eudel had been more ambitious +than Séraphin, so Lemercier de Neuville was +more ambitious than the elder Eudel. And yet his +procedure was precisely that of his predecessors, and +he did not in any way modify the principles of the art. +All he did was to elaborate the performance by the use +of more scenery, of more spectacular effects, and of +more numerous characters. He introduced a company +of Spanish dancers, for example, and he did not hesitate +to throw on his screen the sable and serrated profile +of a long line of ballet dancers. He followed Eudel +in arranging a procession of animals, rivaling a circus +parade, many of them being articulated so that they +could make the appropriate movements of their jaws +and their paws. And he paid special attention to his +silhouette caricatures of contemporary celebrities, Zola +for one, and Sarah-Bernhardt for another.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then the Franco-Russian draftsman, who called +himself Caran d'Ache, made a new departure and +started the art of the shadow-pantomime in a new +career. He called his figures "French shadows," +<i>ombres françaises</i>, and he surrendered the privilege of +articulating his figures so that they could move. At +least, he refrained from this except on rare occasions, +preferring the effect of immobility and relying mainly +upon a new principle not before employed by any of +his predecessors. He made a specialty of long lines +and of large masses of troops, not all on the same plane, +but presented in perspective. He chose also to forgo +the aid of speech and his figures were silent, except +when some officer called out a word of command, or +when a company of Cossacks rode past singing one of +the wailing lyrics of the Caucasus as melancholy as the +steppes.</p> + +<p class="indent">One of the most attractive items on his program was +a representation of the return of vehicles and equestrians +from the Bois de Boulogne in the afternoon. +Some of the figures were merely characteristic types +sharply seized and outlined with all the artist's masterly +draftsmanship, and some of them were well-known +personages easily recognizable by his Parisian spectators—Lesseps +on horseback, for example, and Rochefort +in an open cab. These successive figures were +simply pushed across the screen one after another, +each of them as motionless as a statue, the men fixed +in one attitude, and the legs of the horses retaining +always the same position. This absence of animal +movement was, of course, a violation from the facts +of life, like that which permits the painter to depict +a breaking wave or a sculptor to model a running boy +at a single moment of the movement. Yet this +artistic conversion was immediately acceptable since +the spectator received a simplified impression and his +attention was not distracted by the inevitable jerkiness +of the limbs of the men and the beasts.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_371" id="image_371"></a> +<img src="images/i_371.png" alt="Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris" title="Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris" /><br /> +<span class="caption">The Sphinx I: Pharaoh passing in triumph<br /> +From a shadow picture by Amédée Vignola</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">Caran d'Ache's masterpiece, however—and it may +honestly be styled a masterpiece—was not the 'Return +from the Bois de Boulogne' but his 'Epopée,' his epic +evocation of the grand army of Napoleon. Single figures +like the Little Corporal on horseback, and like +Murat and others of the Emperor's staff, he projected +with a fidelity and a veracity of accent worthy of +Détaille or even Meissonier. Yet fine as these single +figures might be, they were only what had been attempted +by earlier exponents of the art—even if they +were more impressive than had been achieved by any +one of his predecessors. These single figures were +necessarily presented all on the same plane, and the +startling and successful innovation of the Franco-Russian +draftsmanship was his skilful use of perspective, +a device which had not occurred to any of those +in whose footsteps he was following, even Lemercier +de Neuville having presented his ballet dancers in a +flat row. What Caran d'Ache did was to bring before +us company after company of the Old Guard, and troop +after troop of cuirassiers, their profiles diminishing in +height as the figures receded from the eye. He thus +attained to an effect of solidity and even of immensity, +far beyond anything ever before achieved by any earlier +exhibitor of shadows. He succeeded in suggesting +space, and of maneuvering before the astonished eyes +of the entranced spectators a vast mass of men under +arms, marching forward resolutely in serried ranks to +victory or to death.</p> + +<p class="indent">The late Jules Lemaître, the most open-minded of +French dramatic critics, and the most hospitable in his +attitude toward the minor manifestations of theatric +art, has recorded that this Napoleonic epic of Caran +d'Ache communicated to him not only an emotion of +actual grandeur, but also the thrill of war itself. He +declared that "by the exactness of the perspective preserved +in his long files of soldiers, Caran d'Ache gives +us the illusion of number and of a number immense and +indefinite. And by the automatic movement which +sets all his troops in action at once, he gives us the +illusion of a single soul, of a communal thought animating +innumerable bodies—and thereby he evokes +in us the impression of measureless power.... His +silent poem, with its sliding profiles is, I think, the +only epic in all French literature." And those who are +familiar with the other French efforts to attain to lyric +largeness, and who have had also the unforgetable +felicity of beholding Caran d'Ache's marvelous projection +of the Napoleonic legend, will be prepared to +admit that Lemaître did not overstate the case.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_375" id="image_375"></a> +<img src="images/i_375.png" alt="Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris" title="Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris" /><br /> +<span class="caption">The Sphinx II: Moses leading his people out of Egypt<br /> +From a shadow picture by Amédée Vignola</span> +</div> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">What the Franco-Russian artist had done was to +reveal the alluring possibilities placed at the command +of the shadow-pantomimist by the ingenious employment +of perspective; and there remained only one +more step to be taken for the final development of the +art to its ultimate capacity. This was the addition of +color; and this step was taken by an associate of +Caran d'Ache in the exhibitions given at the Chat Noir—Henri +Rivière. Color could be added in two ways. +In the first place, the outlines of lanterns and of battle-flags +could be cut out, and slips of appropriately tinted +paper could be inserted in the openings so that the +light might shine thru. This relieved the monotony +of the uniformity of the sable figures, and added a note +of amusing gaiety. But this was an innovation of very +limited scope; and it could have been earlier utilized +in the flat figures of Lemercier de Neuville, for example, +if he had happened to think of it. Far wider in +its artistic possibilities was the second of Rivière's improvements. +For the ordinary lamp which cast a +steady glow on the white screen whereon the profile +figures appeared, he substituted a magic lantern, the +painted slides of which enabled him to supply an appropriately +colored background. Then he went further +and employed two magic lanterns, superimposed; and +these enabled him to get the effect of "dissolving +views" whereby he could vary his background at will. +The immediate result of this ingenious improvement +was that the artist could bestow upon his shadow-pantomime +not a little of the richness of color which +delights our eyes in the stained glass of medieval +cathedrals.</p> + +<p class="indent">Rivière was not only an inventor, he was also an +artist, richly gifted with imagination; and his imagination +suggested to him at once the three or four themes +best fitted for treatment by his novel apparatus. One +of these was the 'Wandering Jew'; another was the +'Prodigal Son'; and a third was the 'Temptation of +Saint Anthony'—all legends of combined dramatic and +pictorial appeal. Yet the most effective of all the experiments +in this new form was due not to Rivière +himself but to the collaboration of two of his disciples, +M. Fragerolle and M. Vignola. This was the 'Sphinx,' +in which the artists most adroitly combined all the advantages +of the original flat profiles, and of the long +files of figures in perspective such as Caran d'Ache had +employed, with varied backgrounds due to the aid of +the magic lantern first utilized by Rivière. Of all +human monuments no one has had so marvelous a +series of spectacles pass before its sightless eyes as the +Sphinx, reclining impassive at the edge of the desert, +and at the foot of the pyramids. Race after race has +descended into the valley of the Nile, and lingered for a +little space, a few centuries more or less, and departed +at last. Conqueror after conqueror has come and gone +again; and the Sphinx has kept its inscrutable smile.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_379" id="image_379"></a> +<img src="images/i_379.png" alt="Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris" title="Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris" /><br /> +<span class="caption">The Sphinx III: Roman warriors in Egypt<br /> +From a shadow picture by Amédée Vignola</span> +</div> + +<p class="indent">M. Fragerolle composed the music and the words of +the stately chants which accompanied the exhibition +of the figures passing before the backgrounds, due to +the pencil and the palette of M. Vignola. By the aid +of the magic lantern the gigantic visage of the lion +with a woman's head towers aloft, permanent and immutable, +while the joyous procession of Egyptian +dancers and soldiers and priests celebrates the completion +of the statue itself. Then we are witnesses +of the fierce invasion of the Assyrians, with the charge +of their chariots and their horsemen; and we behold +the rout of the natives while their capital burns in the +distance. Next we gaze at the departure of the Jews, +led by Moses and laden with the spoils of the Egyptians. +After the Hebrews have gone, Sesostris appears, +to be greeted by a glad outpouring of the populace. +Yet soon the Persians descend on Egypt, with their +castellated elephants and their immense hordes of +fighting men. Still the Sphinx looks down, immovable +and implacable; and the Greeks in turn take the +valley of the Nile for their own. One of their daughters, +Cleopatra, floats past in her galley by night; and +in the morning she extends her hospitality to the +Roman, Cæsar or Antony. And while the Latins are +the rulers of the land of Egypt, the Virgin and her Son +with the patient ass that bears a precious burden, +skirt the sandy waste, and go on their way to the Holy +Land, leaving the Sphinx behind them as they journey +forward in the green moonlight. After long centuries +the Arabs break in with their brilliant bands of horsemen, +and a little later the Crusaders come to give them +battle. More long centuries elapse and suddenly +Napoleon emerges at the head of the troops of the +French Republic. Then we have the Egypt of to-day, +with the British soldiers parading before the feet of +the Sphinx; and finally the recumbent statue appears +to us once more and for the last time, when the light +of the sun is going out, and the world is emptied of its +population again, and the ice is settling down on the +Sphinx, alone amid freezing desolation. And this last +vision is projected by the magic lantern, without the +aid of any profile figures, since man has ceased to be.</p> + +<p class="indent">Here we have a true epic poem, simple yet grandiose, +and possible only to the improved shadow-pantomime +of France at the end of the nineteenth century—even +if this art is only a logical evolution from the gallanty-show +of Séraphin. "This humble black profile," said +Jules Lemaître, "which had been thought fit at best +of a few comic effects to amuse little children only, +has been diversified and colored; it has been made +beautiful, serious, tragic; by the multiplication of the +devices it has been rendered capable of giving us a +powerful impression of collective life, and the artists +who have developed it have known how to make it +translate to our eyes the great spectacles of history +and the sweeping movement of multitudes."</p> + +<p class="indent">(1912.)</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><a name="image_383" id="image_383"></a> +<img src="images/i_383.png" alt="Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris" title="Reproduced by permission of E. Flammarion, Paris" /><br /> +<span class="caption">The Sphinx IV: The British troops to-day<br /> +From a shadow picture by Amédée Vignola</span> +</div> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">XIX<br />THE PROBLEM OF DRAMATIC CRITICISM<a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a></p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<p class="h2">THE PROBLEM OF DRAMATIC CRITICISM<br />I</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is now no longer in dispute that there has been in +the past score or two of years a striking revival of the +drama in the English language, and that there are +to-day British and American playwrights who write +plays which are worth while—plays which are both +actable and readable—plays which often deserve and +which sometimes even demand serious critical consideration. +This revival has necessarily resulted in +calling attention to the present condition of dramatic +criticism in Great Britain and in the United States. +In a period of dramatic productivity, dramatic criticism +has an indisputable function and is charged with +an undeniable duty, both to the aspiring play-makers +and to the main body of the playgoing public. We +cannot help asking ourselves whether our dramatic +critics rightly apprehend their function and whether +they properly discharge their duty; and to these pressing +questions the most conflicting answers are returned.</p> + +<p class="indent">Some there are who insist that it is hopeless to expect +the desired outflowering of dramatic literature in +our language to take place so long as our dramatic +criticism is as inadequate, as incompetent, and as unsatisfactory +as they declare it to be. Others there are +who take a more tolerant view, holding the public itself +to be at fault for the existing state of things, and who, +therefore, believe that we are now getting dramatic +criticism quite as good as we deserve. Few there are +who venture to deny that there is room for improvement—altho +no two of these agree in their suggestions +for bringing about a bettering of present conditions. +In the multitude of these counsellors there is darkness +and confusion.</p> + +<p class="indent">Perhaps there is a dim possibility of dissipating a +little of this dark confusion by an analysis of the exact +content, which we discover in the term "dramatic criticism," +and then by a further inquiry as to whether our +customary use of the term is not misleading. "Dramatic +criticism" to most of us connotes the newspaper +reviewing of the nightly spectacles in our theaters. +Plainly this was the meaning of the term in the mind +of Mr. Howells years ago, when he declared that "our +dramatic criticism is probably the most remarkable +apparatus of our civilization" and that it "surpasses +that of other countries as much as our fire-department. +A perfectly equipped engine stands in every newspaper +office, with the steam always up, which can be manned +in nine seconds and rushed to the first theater where +there is the slightest danger of drama within five minutes; +and the combined efforts of these tremendous +machines can pour a concentrated deluge of cold water +upon a play which will put out anything of the kind +at once."</p> + +<p class="indent">There is no denying that this use of the term by Mr. +Howells is supported by custom. Yet it is distinctly +unfortunate, for if the newspaper comment upon the +novelties of the stage is to be accepted as "dramatic +criticism," then what term have we left to describe +the more piercing and the more comprehensive discussion +of the first principles of the art of play-making +which we find in Francisque Sarcey and in George +Henry Lewes, not to go back to Lessing and to Aristotle? +It is equally unfortunate that there is an equivalent +inaccuracy in bestowing the title of "literary criticism" +upon the newspaper comments upon the current +books, for if this journalistic summarizing is to be +accepted as "literary criticism," then what are we to +call the exquisite evaluation of favorite authors which +we find in Matthew Arnold and Sainte-Beuve?</p> + +<p class="indent">Of course, it is always idle to protest against the +popular use or misuse of words and terms and phrases. +The people as a whole own the language, and have a +right to make it over and to modify the original meaning +of words. If popular usage chooses not to distinguish +between two very different things, and to call +both of them "dramatic criticism," there is no redress, +and yet it is impossible to discuss the problem of dramatic +criticism except by trying to separate the two +things thus confounded. Therefore, for the purpose +of this inquiry only, and without any hope of changing +the accepted usage, I make bold to suggest that "play-reviewing" +might be employed to describe the notices +written in the office of a newspaper, notices necessarily +prepared under pressure and under strict limitations +of time and space.</p> + +<p class="indent">These newspaper notices are sometimes careless, +they are sometimes perfunctory, and they are sometimes +cruel; and occasionally they are careful, conscientious, +and clever, done with a dexterity worthy of high praise +when we consider all the conditions under which it is +displayed. But even at its best, play-reviewing cannot +attain to the level of true dramatic criticism, more +leisurely in its composition, larger in its scope, and more +discriminating in its choice of topic. The play-reviewing +of the daily journal is akin in aim to the book-reviewing, +which has for its purpose the swift consideration +of the volume in vogue at the moment. In our +morning and evening papers the book-reviewing and +the play-reviewing are both of them necessarily up-to-date, +in fact, up-to-the-last-minute. To be contemporaneous, +instantly and necessarily and inexorably, +is their special quality and their immediate purpose; +it is the reason for their existence and the excuse for +their being.</p> + +<p class="h2">II</p> + +<p class="indent">Here it may be well to cite again the oft-quoted confession +of the late Jules Lemaître, writer of volume after +volume in which he discussed the leading men of letters +of his own time and of his own country: "Criticism +of our contemporaries is not criticism—it is conversation." +Now, conversation may be a very good +thing; indeed, when it is as clear and as sparkling as +was Lemaître's, it is an excellent thing; yet he was +right in admitting that it is not criticism, since it could +not but lack the touchstone of time, the perspective of +distance, the assured application of the eternal standards. +And play-reviewing, like book-reviewing, cannot +be anything but conversation about our contemporaries. +It may descend to chaff-like chatter about +the writers of the hour and to empty gossip about +their sayings and doings; or it may have the sterner +merits of brilliant conversation at its best. But it is +not really criticism in the finer sense of the word; it +cannot be; and one may go further and say that it +ought not to be, since true criticism is more or less out +of place in a newspaper—because the direct object of +a newspaper is to present the news, with only the swiftest +of commentaries thereon.</p> + +<p class="indent">The final distinction between literature and journalism +is to be sought in their diverging and irreconcilable +objects. The desire of the former is for permanence, +and the aim of the latter is the immediate impression. +When literature triumphs it is for all time—more or +less. When journalism most completely achieves its +purpose its success is temporary, to be retained only +by iteration and reiteration, since it has for its target +the events of the fleeting moment. If we admit this +distinction between journalism and literature, we have +no difficulty in discovering journalism in many places +other than the daily and weekly papers; very properly +it fills the most of the space in the monthly magazines, +and even in the quarterly reviews; and it abounds in +our book-stores, since only a small proportion of the +volumes which pour from the press every year possess +the combined substance and style, the solidity of matter +and the delightfulness of manner which lift mere +writing up to the loftier level of literature.</p> + +<p class="indent">On the other hand, we may find literature of inexpugnable +quality, not only in the magazines, but also +now and again in the newspapers. Drake's 'American +Flag' and Kipling's 'Recessional' appeared in daily +journals, and so did the literary criticism of Sainte-Beuve +and the dramatic criticism of Lessing and of +Lemaître. But these were but happy accidents, and +the great newspaper editor has rarely striven to make +his journal a persistent vehicle for the publication of +literature. He feels that this is foreign to his main +purpose, and he is content when his editorial articles, +and his news stories are vigorous and picturesque—clean, +clear, and cogent in their English. He knows, +better than any one else, that it is not by its external +literary merits that newspaper-writing is to be judged. +What he wants above all else is the news, all the news, +and nothing but the news—accompanied, of course, +by the obligatory comment this news may deserve. +He needs editorial writers, reporters, and correspondents +who are newspaper men, and not men of letters, +except in so far as these men of letters may have accepted +the special conditions of newspaper work.</p> + +<p class="indent">Now, criticism, whether literary or dramatic, is a +department of literature, dealing with the permanent, +and having little to do with the temporary. It demands +qualifications very rarely united—insight, equipment, +disinterestedness, and sympathy. So far from +being easy, criticism is quite as difficult as creation—more +difficult, indeed, if we may judge by its greater +rarity. In a superbly creative period there are sometimes +three or four distinguished poets, friendly rivals, +almost contemporaneous; and even at such a time +there is rarely more than one critic worthy to be companioned +with them. Æschylus and Sophocles and +Euripides followed one after the other; and in time the +sole Aristotle came forward as their critic. Corneille +and Molière and Racine labored side by side, and only +Boileau was competent to interpret and to encourage +them.</p> + +<p class="indent">When it attains to the serene plane of Aristotle and +Boileau, of Lessing and Sainte-Beuve, criticism is +actually creation. "The critical faculty as applied to +the masterpieces of literature, and still more the critical +faculty as applied to the art of literature itself, is akin +to the creative faculty of the artist," so Professor Mackail +has told us. "It does not deal with letters as +something detached from life, but as the form or substance +in which life is intelligibly presented. Its interpretation +is also creation." But the criticism of +dramatic literature which is also creation, is possible +only when the critical faculty is applied to the masterpieces +of dramatic literature; and nobody knows +better than the play-reviewer that masterpieces of +dramatic literature do not present themselves frequently +and that they cannot be acclaimed as masterpieces +until they have stood the test of time. And this +is why a critic-creator would be a little out of place +on the staff of a newspaper, daily or weekly, whether +he was assigned to deal with the drama or with literature +at large.</p> + +<p class="h2">III</p> + +<p class="indent">The necessary task of the book-reviewer or of the +play-reviewer, is not criticism of the creative kind, +since for that he is always likely to lack material. His +task is humbler even if it is honorable; it is to report +upon the novelties of the day, and to inform the readers +of the newspaper as to the nature and the merits +of these novelties. His work is essentially reporting, +even if it is reporting of a special kind, calling for special +qualifications. The connection of the drama with the +show business is intimate, and it always has been. In +the long history of the theater there is no period without +its successful pieces, the appeal of which was mainly +sensuous—to the eye and to the ear, rather than to the +emotions and to the intellect. While the drama is an +art, and perhaps the loftiest of the arts, the show +business is a trade. This is no new thing—altho +ignorant idealists often declare it so to be, and altho +it may make itself a little more obvious at one time +than at another. What confronts us is the condition +of things as they are, not the theory of things as they +might be.</p> + +<p class="indent">There would be occupation for a dramatic critic, +who was also a creator, only if our theaters were presenting +in rapid succession a sequence of masterpieces, +tragedies of austere power, comedies of searching satire, +social dramas of piercing suggestion. But this is not +the case now here in the United States in the twentieth +century; and it never has been the case anywhere or +anywhen, not even in Weimar when Goethe dominated +the ducal theater. In our playhouses we are proffered +our choice of Shakspere and Ibsen, Pinero and Hauptmann, +Henry Arthur Jones and Augustus Thomas, +Barrie and Gillette, Sardou and George M. Cohan; and +at the same time we are invited to choose between +'Trilby' and the 'Celebrated Case,' melodramas and +farces, summer song-shows and ultra-contemporary +reviews, alleged comic operas and terpsichorean spectacles. +Most of these latter exhibitions do not demand +or deserve criticism of any kind; but they need +to be reported upon like any other item in the news of +the day.</p> + +<p class="indent">If this is the case, it might as well be recognized +frankly. There is always advantage in seeing things +as they are, in fronting the facts and in looking them +squarely in the face. Sooner or later some one of +those who are in charge of our metropolitan newspapers +will perceive the possibility of a change of method. +He will charge one of his staff with the supervision of +the theatrical news, the announcements of new plays, +and the personal gossip about the players; and he will +authorize this editor to send competent reporters to +all first performances, directed to report upon them as +they would report upon any other event of immediate +interest. He would warn these reporters that they +were strictly to consider themselves as reporters, and +that they were, therefore, to refrain from explicit +criticism. He would so select his men that a melodrama +should be dealt with by a reporter who liked a +good melodrama, and that a summer song-show should +be described by a reporter who could find pleasure in +inoffensive and amusing spectacle. If this policy +should be adopted, and announced clearly and emphatically, +probably most of the occasions for quarrel +between managers and editors would disappear; and +the immense majority of the readers of the daily paper +would be supplied with exactly the information they +would prefer.</p> + +<p class="indent">Then, for the benefit of the smaller number who are +really interested in the drama as a serious art, the +editor-in-chief might avail himself of the fact that the +Sunday issue, while it is still a newspaper containing +the news of the preceding twenty-four hours, is also +a magazine, to be read in more leisurely fashion, and +therefore at liberty to treat timely topics with a larger +freedom. Here space could be found for genuine dramatic +criticism by the most competent expert available. +This dramatic critic should have nothing whatever to +do with the news of the theaters, or with the first-night +play-reviewing. He should not be tired and +bored by having to go to the theater half a dozen times +a week, and by being forced to analyze plays which do +not reward analysis. He would be expected to select +out of the current performances that one which promised +to be most worthy of careful consideration, and +he would feel himself free to discuss this at such length +as it might seem to him to deserve. To him also should +be intrusted the more significant of the new books +upon the history of the theater, and upon the art of +the drama. In the summer (and also whenever at +any other season there might be a dearth of inspiring +topics), this dramatic critic would not be expected to +contribute, since he should never be called upon to +make bricks without straw.</p> + +<p class="indent">Even in New York this method is not as new as it +may seem, and more than one metropolitan daily has +approximated to it, altho no one of them has completely +detached the dramatic critic from the play-reviewer +and from the supervisor of theatrical gossip. +And it has long been adopted in certain of the Paris +newspapers. In the <i>Temps</i>, for example, when Sarcey +was its dramatic critic, there was a daily column of +theatrical announcements and of brief reports upon +first-night performances; and with this department of +the news of the theaters Sarcey had nothing to do, +and for it he had no responsibility. Then in the +ample space specially reserved for him in the issue of +every Sunday afternoon, he dealt with the dramatic +themes that seemed to him worth while. If a play +appeared to demand prolonged study, he might go to +see it two, or even three times, before he undertook to +formulate his opinion; and on occasion he would carry +over his detailed discussion of a very important drama +into the article of the following Sunday. On the other +hand, if no recent play seemed to him to deserve his +continued attention, he would devote himself to one +of the recent books about the theater or to a detailed +discussion of the proper interpretation of one of the +classics of the French drama kept constantly in the +repertory of the Comédie-Française.</p> + +<p class="h2">IV</p> + +<p class="indent">The adoption of this method would relieve the dramatic +critic from one of his existing disadvantages; +he would be released from criticising the pieces which +are beneath criticism. The literary critic, and even +the ordinary book-reviewer, never spends his time in +considering dime novels—whereas the dramatic critic +is now called upon to waste many evenings in beholding +a play which is only the theatrical equivalent of a dime +novel. The immediate result of this futile and fatiguing +expenditure of energy is likely to be discouraging +and even enervating. If the dramatic critic could be +totally relieved from all contact with the show business +when the show business has only a casual connection +with the drama, it would tend to keep him fit for his +essential task. Under the present conditions it is no +wonder that the theatrical reviewer wearies of his task +and loses the gusto and the zest without which all +work tends to degenerate into the perfunctory and the +mechanical.</p> + +<p class="indent">We need not fear that the first-night reporting would +be ill done if competent reporters were instructed that +they were not to consider themselves as critics, and that +it was their sole duty to report, as they would report +anything else, conscientiously and accurately. The +difficulty would not be in finding reporters able to discharge +this duty, it would be in the discovery of dramatic +critics possessing the fourfold qualifications of +insight, equipment, disinterestedness, and sympathy, +which every critic must be endowed with whatever the +art he undertakes to analyze. And the difficulty would +be increased by the fact that the dramatic critic needs +an understanding of three different arts, the art of +acting, the art of literature, and the art of the drama—of +play-making as distinct from literature.</p> + +<p class="indent">It would be idle to hope that even if this method +were adopted we should soon be able to develop in the +United States and in Great Britain a group of dramatic +critics of the capacity and the quality of Lessing +and Sarcey, of George Henry Lewes and William +Archer. Yet it is solely by the adoption of this method +that we can hope to provide the opportunity for the +appearance of the true dramatic critic, who can fit +himself for his finer work only by being set free from +the necessity of doing work quite unworthy of him, +altho necessary to the newspaper itself. And the development +of a group of dramatic critics of a higher +type than can be found to-day—except possibly in a +scant half-dozen dailies and weeklies and monthlies—is +a condition precedent to the development of our +drama. Of course, these dramatic critics, whatever +their endowment, could give little help directly to the +dramatic authors, since it is a mistake to suppose that +the critic is capable of counselling the author, or that +he is charged with any such duty. Where the critic +can help is by disseminating knowledge about the dramatic +art, and by raising the standard of appreciation +in the public at large—that public which even the +mightiest dramatist has to please or else to fail of his +purpose.</p> + +<p class="indent">(1915.)</p> + +<hr class="hr2"/> + +<div class="tnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent">The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up +paragraphs and so that they are next the text they illustrate. Thus the +page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the +List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the +same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.</p> + +<p class="indent">Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected +unless otherwise noted below:</p> + +<p class="indent">Throughout the book, "avalanch" was replaced with "avalanche".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 56, the single quotation mark was removed from the block-quoted paragraph.</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 116, "denial of of" was replaced with "denial of".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 230, "Amercan" was replaced with "American".</p> + +<p class="indent">On page 296, "air-cirlces" was replaced with "air-circles".</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Book About the Theater, by Brander Matthews + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK ABOUT THE THEATER *** + +***** This file should be named 36790-h.htm or 36790-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/9/36790/ + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Ernest Schaal, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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